Yesterday, I shared that companies are reducing data integration costs with master data management technologies. Much of the post drew from a recent Aberdeen Group report on the growing interest in MDM-related procedures, policies and technologies -- even in companies that claim they have no plans to use MDM at all.

As luck would have it,  the author of the whitepaper -- Aberdeen senior analyst Michael Dortch -- will be discussing this very topic during a webinar next Tuesday, June 24, at 1 p.m. CDT -- that's 2 p.m., EDT, 11 a.m. PDT. His talk is titled "Winning MDM Strategies for 2008 - 2009 - and Beyond," which should give you some clue as to the content.

Check it out if you're at all involved with MDM or even initiatives that Aberdeen believes feed into MDM, such as Enterprise Information Integration (EII) and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM).

Initiate Systems, which underwrote the research with Baseline Consulting, is sponsoring the event.

In other integration news:

Free Whitepaper on Operational Data Integration. Informatica is offering a free 18-page whitepaper explaining how operational data integration paves the way to becoming a real-time enterprise. And when I say "free," I mean free except you must fork over your name, address, phone number and other information that makes salespeople drool. It does discuss the major technology components used for operational data integration, with an eye toward Informatica's own offerings, of course. There are quotes from industry analysts and Informatica customers. It's definitely worth a review if you're curious about their offering.

SAP Plans to Buy Niche Manufacturing Solutions Company. SAP has long been a partner with Visiprise, which offers a manufacturing execution solution (MES) that helps manufacturers with integration and product lifecycle management. Just last year, SAP recognized Visiprise ERP Shop Floor Integration 1.0 packaged composite application with its its xApps certification. This week, SAP announced it intends to buy the Georgia-based company outright. According to this press release, published on Sys-Con Media, Visiprise serves more than 60 global customers, including many existing SAP customers, in discrete manufacturing industries including high tech, aerospace and defense, automotive and medical device.

Altova Data Integration Tools Explained. If you're looking for a cheap and easy tool for data integration, you might want to read, "Business Boon or Budget Breaker?" published on Sys-Con this week. It reads like an article, but you'll notice the writer -- Tim Hale -- is director of worldwide marketing for Altova, so it's no surprise that Altova's data integration tools are liberally used as examples throughout the piece. Still, it does explain nicely what you'll get in terms of a data integration development tool that's priced under $1,000, which is why I mention it. Just know a good part of it is sales pitch. SearchCRM Publishes Series on CRM Integration. TechTarget's SearchCRM site is running a four-part series on integration and customer resource management applications. The first article, written by a principal consultant with Cognizant, focuses on how Web services can help integrate your CRM system with on-demand self-service applications and interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Don't worry about it being too technical -- the article manages to cater to both business and technology readers by explaining the integration benefits of Web services as well as covering how the more specific technology issues you'll need to consider. The second part of the series will run June 26 and will focus on integrating SaaS CRM and ERP applications. Additional details on the final articles and publication dates are listed after the author's bio at the end of the article.