Released on February 1, 2009

B&L Information Systems, Bridgman, Mich., was named a finalist for the Progress Corp. 2009 Software as a Service Excellence Award.

The award honors Progress’ partners whose participation in software as a service enablement programs has resulted in innovative offerings that achieve commercial success within their markets.

B&L’s Odyssey Software as a Service is a metalcasting industry-specific enterprise resource planning software. The software is the same Odyssey software in use in metalcasting facilities today, but it does not require the upfront sums of money and resources typically needed for its installation. All hardware and hardware maintenance, software and software maintenance, backups and disaster recovery are handled by B&L and its business partner GramTel Inc., South Bend, Ind.