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Software Business schools hop on board with Orenburg program

When students enrolled at the A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Management at UC Riverside start applying for jobs, they’ll have a heads-up in how to manage and use business applications.

In August, the university signed on with Orenburg USA, a San Diego-based software developer, to implement its Board Management Intelligence Toolkit, a business intelligence software, in three of its information systems and theories classes.

The toolkit, also known as Board M.I.T., can be loaded onto Microsoft Windows-based computers. It allows users to build their own business development applications with no programming experience or having to add programming codes.

“The M.I.T. Toolkit teaches students how to implement discussions and use them in a corporate setting,” said Erik Rolland, professor of Management Information Systems at the Anderson School of Management.

The software enables students to use “exploratory analysis,” Rolland said.

Students in business management theory classes are assigned to fictitious businesses where they apply data to the program and learn how to build and access their own decision support systems.

The information systems program helps students manipulate data and discover data patterns about situations that aren’t obvious until further analyzed, such as numerical data on the sale of a product and what particular regions are generating the majority of sales.

Already being used in universities throughout Europe, UC Riverside is the first school in North America to institute the software, said Mike Talbott, solutions engineer for Orenburg.

“The reaction is very positive,” Rolland said. “They (students) realize what they can do with the program that is unlike any other database program.”

Orenburg chose to solicit to the university as a means of introducing the software to an audience that would not only learn to use the product, but would later be the ones taking its ability out into the work force, Talbott said. The program is also part of its goal to develop educational partnerships with business schools throughout the United States.

“Our goal is to develop a mind-share with our product; we needed a voice for this product, a stamp of approval and going through a university enables us to do that,” he said. “The methodology is intriguing because it’s generic and can be used with any other management problems or organizations.” It’s what sets Board M.I.T. apart from its competitors, Talbott said.

“Our product is developed to fit that particular company, as compared to a product that is developed to fit all companies and then having to customize it yourself,” Talbott said.

Besides the classroom, the toolkit can also be used in businesses.

Having to re-program a software product can be costly. Board M.I.T. allows businesses to avoid the cost through customizing the software to fit a business structure from the beginning stages, rather than having to re-program it, which according to Talbott, is the main complaint against similar, or competing products.

Prices for the software begin around $12,000, and discounts are offered depending on the amount of users and type of software purchased.

Board M.I.T. is also available through the Internet as a Web-based version, and Orenburg is working on upgrading the toolkit version within the next few months.

The company, which has offices in Europe, is working to sign with other major distributors, and with UC Riverside, to develop an internship program in the fall.

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