IBM certified Business Objects for use with its On Demand Workplace offering, and the companies have added performance management to On Demand applications made for the retail industry as the first integration of the two technologies.

Business Objects and IBM have "several" industry-focused On Demand integrations in the works, said Business Objects, which announced the news at the annual Retail Systems conference being held this week in Chicago.

On Demand Workplace comprises software, hardware and services designed to simplify employee access to content, applications, and business processes. Business Objects, the first BI vendor whose applications have been certified with On Demand, will add role-based performance indicators, alerts and analytics to the suite.

The performance management application for retailers is designed around function-based metrics and exception alerts. It addresses the way merchants manage sales, staff, inventory and finance with the help of role-based reporting dashboards.

The two vendors said they're also developing sales and marketing initiatives for their joint offering.