Helsinki, Finland – 22nd of February 2024 – Frends, an integration platform as a service (iPaaS) by Frends Technology, recognized among the iPaaS vendors in the global iPaaS landscape. For the 2nd consecutive year, Gartner® has positioned Frends in the Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service. Magic Quadrant ™ reports are a culmination of rigorous, fact-based research in specific markets, providing a wide-angle view of the relative positions of the providers in markets where growth is high, and provider differentiation is distinct.

“The demand for integration has never been higher, and integration platform as a service is the largest integration platform market meeting this demand,” according to Gartner®.

Serving clients in over 16 countries, Frends Technology has shown significant growth by launching operations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) and DACH regions, demonstrating its mission to address the dynamic needs of businesses across the globe. Gartner has recognized Frends for its ability to execute and completeness of vision.

"The market shifts quickly, and our mission at Frends is to help our clients adapt to new requirements and environments as swiftly as possible. Frends has consistently delivered exceptional value, enabling our customers to achieve an average go-live time of just two months," shares Jukka Rautio, CEO of Frends Technology. He emphasizes the platform's efficiency, noting, "A standout feature of Frends is its ability to cut development time in half. These are remarkable and crucial figures: significant reductions in development time and faster project deployments - This is our customer promise."

Leveraging Microsoft Azure and Open Standards

Microsoft distinguished Frends in 2023 as Microsoft Partner of the Year in Finland in the Cloud SaaS Solution Category. Built and hosted on Microsoft Azure, Frends iPaaS champions the use of open standards, including the OpenAPI Specification and BPMN. It offers seamless compatibility with Microsoft technologies such as .NET and C#, and its low-code, user-friendly platform simplifies the complexity of integrations, automation, and API challenges. This synergy with Microsoft infrastructure facilitates a smooth transition from BizTalk to Frends, paving the way for efficient adoption of Azure services. With Microsoft announcing BizTalk's end-of-life by 2030, Frends emerges as a powerful alternative, offering transparent pricing and a user-friendly development environment within the Microsoft ecosystem.

To learn more about the iPaaS market and Frends Technology's recognition, read the Gartner report: "Magic Quadrant for Integration Platform as a Service."

Product Advancements

Expanding the Frends Task Library The expanded public connector and task library further enhance Frends' platform, providing an extensive array of B2B components to streamline integration processes. This library resource empowers users to build and manage integrations efficiently. - https://tasks.frends.com

Frends' 2024 Vision

API Monitoring Frends is set to introduce Passthrough APIs and enhanced API monitoring capabilities in 2024. Passthrough APIs simplify API call configurations, enabling straightforward forwarding to backend systems. This functionality, alongside enhanced API monitoring, offers detailed insights into API health and execution statistics.

A Business User Interface The launch of the Business User UI is a significant milestone in making integration accessible to non-technical users. This interface allows business users to easily discover, configure, and deploy integration flows from a vast library of templates, promoting a no-code experience and enabling embedded iPaaS experiences for ISV/SaaS partners.

Frends GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) Frends is set to enhance its integration platform with Frends GPT - Chat & Code Generation, leveraging the Azure Open AI GPT 4.0 model. This addition introduces a natural language processing (NLP) interface to the Frends environment, designed to significantly elevate developer productivity. With Frends GPT, developers can use conversational language to interact directly with the platform, streamlining their workflow. This feature is aimed at simplifying complex coding tasks and accelerating the development process, ultimately delivering faster project completions, and enhancing the overall user experience on the Frends platform.

As a European iPaaS going global, Frends Technology prides itself on its flexibility, transparent pricing model, and closeness to an end-user. The company boasts a growing network of partners and customers, including AddSecure, Aleris, Boliden, BN Bank, Mitsubishi Logisnext Europe, and Orion Pharma.

Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Integration Platform as a Service, Keith Guttridge, Andrew Comes, Shrey Pasricha, Max van den Berk, Andrew Humphreys, February 19, 2024.

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About Frends Technology

Frends iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) is a leading enabler of digitalization and business process automation at the forefront of the world's leading iPaaS platforms. Frends iPaaS allows for the development, management, and security of all integrations and process automations on a powerful low-code platform with over 4,000 end-users globally. Frends platform was established in Finland in 1988 and has snowballed in the Nordic region's domestic markets and internationally, covering +16 countries. Currently, Frends has a local presence in Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, and Singapore.