Year: 1999 (Page 65 of 97)

The Sun-Netscape Alliance reaffirmed its support for the RosettaNet consortium and other key organizations including CommerceNet, XML.org or OASIS that are helping to define the industry’s XML standards for business-to-business electronic commerce processes. The Alliance also described its plan to integrate XML support across its family of e-commerce applications for commerce exchange, online procurement, online selling and online bill presentment and payment. In a related announcement, RosettaNet announced its commitment to providing an XML standard for live product implementations by February 2, 2000. The Sun-Netscape Alliance, which has executive representation in the consortium, is supporting this timeline and has agreed to collaborate with the other RosettaNet board members to align business processes to support the organization’s XML standard. Commerce Exchange Netscape ECXpert, an application that enables the exchange of commerce information between business systems of the partners, supplier and customer, will provide an XML interface for sending and receiving XML documents, including support for implementing RosettaNet eConcert Partner Internet Processes. Online Procurement and Selling Netscape BuyerXpert will leverage XML features within Netscape EXCpert to help link a company’s internal procurement function with the procurement system of its external suppliers. Netscape BuyerXpert supports XML as a standard mechanism for catalog content exchange. Netscape SellerXpert, a business-to-business online selling application, will support XML by leveraging Netscape ECXpert’s capabilities. The Alliance plans to unveil its complete XML strategy for online selling in the near future. Online Bill Presentment and Payment Netscape BillerXpert today standardizes on XML for all data loading including membership, account data and billing data as it is translated from print streams. The Alliance plans to expand its use of XML within Netscape BillerXpert for greater interoperability with other applications and greater flexibility in meeting customized presentation needs in vertical markets. www.sun.com

RosettaNet announced a number of participants in eConcert – the implementation phase of RosettaNet. In an initiative that will define supply chain transactions using between 75 and 100 standard XML-based partner interface processes (PIPs), or computer-to-computer dialogs, 15 companies have committed resources to four-to-six-month pilot programs that will test processes for updating catalogs and purchasing products. The announcement involves implementation of nine PIPs that will eventually comprise e-business production systems. The selected implementers have formed partnerships of two to six companies to begin pilot implementations. These early adopters recognize the value that RosettaNet’s standards bring for themselves, RosettaNet members, and every other company in the IT supply chain. Purchasing processes currently being piloted consist of computer dialogs relating to requests for pricing information, inventory level, and order status and management of purchase orders. Arrow and Intel have formed one partnership to test purchasing processes, while IBM, Inacom, CHS, Ingram Micro and MicroAge comprise a second group to so the same. As part of the eConcert implementation phase, three milestones were established by the RosettaNet board members regarding the pilot implementation of PIPs by the various company partnerships. The first milestone, when three selected partnerships will have successfully completed the pilot phase of one or more PIPs, is scheduled for June 25, 1999. Five more partnerships will follow at the second milestone on August 9, 1999. Finally, eConcert will come to fruition on February 2, 2000, when all the eConcert member companies will use PIPs in their everyday production routines.The complete set of PIPs will address six high-level business activities

Quintessent Communications, Inc. announced the availability of their XML based Message Adapters. These XML based Message Adapters, together with the QConnect Platform and a suite of Interconnect Applications, provide a Tele.Commerce solution for telecommunications back-office electronic commerce. Quintessent also announced the release of QConnect Studio, an XML based tool-set that efficiently modifies Quintessent’s off-the-shelf Message Adapters to meet the changing requirements of trading partners. Back-office e-commerce for the telecommunications market, Tele.Commerce, requires carriers to electronically bond with trading partners in order to intelligently exchange high volumes of transactional ordering data. The XML based Message Adapters are first to utilize XML as a meta-language to define and generate the electronic data interchange (EDI) streams for trading partner interexchange. This significantly improves how carriers build, translate, validate and modify their e-commerce data transmissions, allowing business analysts within the carrier to efficiently manage message content and make ongoing changes to business rules without reprogramming EDI. The result is quicker implementation of interexchange and information requirements while lowering the cost of ownership for the single Tele.Commerce solution. www.quintcom.com

Google, a start-up dedicated to providing the best search experience on the web, today announced it has completed a $25-million round of equity funding led by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Google also announced that Michael Moritz, general partner of Sequoia Capital, and John Doerr, general partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, have joined its board of directors. Michael Moritz is currently a director of numerous companies, including Yahoo, eToys, Quote.com, eGroups, PlanetRx, Flextronics, and WebVan. John Doerr was a co-founder of @Home and is a director of several high growth Internet companies, including Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Handspring, Healtheon/WebMD, Homeshop.com, Intuit, and Sun Microsystems. Google’s technology highlights include PageRank, a patent-pending, objective measure of the importance of web pages. PageRank is computed by solving an equation of 500 million variables and two billion terms. Google’s innovative user interface includes dynamic summaries, a cached web, and the time-saving “I’m feeling lucky” button. Google also offers co-branded solutions for information content providers. Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, building on three years of research as computer science Ph.D. candidates at Stanford University. http://google.com

Dataware Technologies, Inc. announced that it has sold one-half of its interest in Northern Light Technology LLC back to Northern Light for $4.1 million and that Northern Light had also repaid its $1.2 million promissory note held by Dataware. After the transactions, Dataware retains an approximate 5% interest in NorthernLight. This transaction will result in a gain of approximately $5.0 million for Dataware Technologies during the second quarter of this year. The$5.0 million will be used as additional working capital. www.dataware.com