Dun & Bradstreet Provides Windows Azure In-house Developers with On-demand Corporate Data for Cloud-based Apps

Grazed from BusinessWire. Author: PR Announcement.

D&B, the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, today announced that it is providing the most comprehensive, current, and complete business data for in-house developers on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform, through the just-announced Windows Azure Store. D&B Business Insight lets users generate a list of companies from D&B’s global database of more than 215 million records, from criteria matched to their business needs. This high-quality data will give in-house developers and their customers the business information they need to capture new business opportunities and make informed business decisions.

Whether scoping the size of a market in a given territory, generating prospect lists, qualifying leads, building marketing campaigns or sourcing new suppliers, Windows Azure corporate developers and their customers can gain practical, powerful business insights from the new service. Business Insight is based on D&B’s API platform, D&B Direct…

Users can take advantage of a no-cost trial of 500 transactions from the D&B global database, which is updated several times daily. After the free trial, developers can purchase D&B Business Insight as a monthly subscription based upon the appropriate volume required to support their applications. D&B Business Insight is also available to any Microsoft user via the Windows Azure Marketplace.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM users already have full access to D&B’s extensive business information database through its award-winning on-demand data management solution, D&B360. The solution combines D&B’s unrivaled business information and corporate hierarchies with social data from popular social platforms. The result is actionable insight that improves the effectiveness of an organization’s sales and marketing teams.

With the explosive growth of data available to developers, enterprises, and end users, organizations have access to more sources and types of data than ever before. In-house developers are increasingly entrusted to provide end users not only with reliable, accurate, and timely data, but also with applications that provide insight and facilitate decision making.

“We are excited to work with D&B to integrate their data and services within the Windows Azure Marketplace and the recently announced Windows Azure Store, where we bring the world’s data together,” said Jim Karkanias, Partner Director PM, Azure SQL Database, Microsoft. “Developers whose applications require access to a comprehensive source of public and corporate data can now easily connect and turn data into action.”

“Delivering our data through Microsoft’s online marketplaces demonstrates our vision of enabling D&B data to flow through systems that power a business,” said Jim Lawton, Senior Vice President of Strategic Alliances, D&B. “With our history an experience, we can provide the most comprehensive, complete and current data available to any enterprise developer. Organizations will benefit from information-rich applications that will serve as the basis for more informed business decisions.”

A recipient of the 2012 Informatica Innovation Award for Cloud, and the DataWeek Award 2012 for exceptional innovation in the Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) segment, D&B is recognized as the consummate provider of comprehensive, clean and current data to developers and enterprises in the marketing, sales, supply chain, finance and other data-intensive industries.