Category: Marketing & e-commerce (Page 66 of 77)

Cascade Systems Inc. announced that it has signed a Letter of Agreement to merge with Pindar Systems. The two privately held companies, who expect the transaction to be completed by the end of January, plan to combine their engineering, marketing, and financial resources. E-merchandising represents an explosive market for the new millennium. Pindars’s catalog publishing products combined with Cascades’s e-merchandising technology will provide a powerful e-commerce solution covering web, print and e-mail. The National Retail Federation and International Data Corporation forecasts sales in e-merchandising to grow from $2 billion in 2000 to more than $8 billion in 2003. Although Internet commerce continues to grow at a rapid pace with anticipated revenues of $84 billion by 2004, print catalogs remain a big business. The Direct Marketing Association estimates print catalog sales will grow from $93 billion in 1999 to more than $125 billion by 2004. Both companies recognize the importance of continuity in shared product information databases as the key to effective print and electronic merchandising in the next century. www.cascadenet.com

The Council for Internet Commerce today announced the opening of the second and final round of voting on the Standard for Internet Commerce, a codification of e-commerce best practices to increase consumer satisfaction, confidence and trust. Through Dec. 6, the public is encouraged to join the council’s founding members in their votes and shaping the content of the commerce standard. Consumers visiting the Commerce Standard site will be able to cast their votes in categories ranging from disclosure practices to customer support, in an easy-to-use multiple choice format. www.commercestandard.com

webMethods, Inc. announced strategic alliances with consulting firms Intelligroup, Inc. and Lante Corporation. As part of their expanding e-commerce practices, these consulting firms will incorporate webMethods B2B into their methodology and provide customers with a broad range of consulting and implementation services to execute B2B e-commerce strategies. webMethods B2B provides a business community integration platform that makes it possible for companies to pursue direct integration with trading partners, while also participating in emerging B2B Marketplaces such as mySAP.com, the Ariba Network and Clarus SupplierUniverse. webMethods B2B utilizes XML and open Web standards, such as RosettaNet, OAG, OBI and ACORD, to connect integrated business communities and enable companies to conduct business over the Internet with minimal stress to corporate resources and existing IT infrastructure. www.webMethods.com

UWI.Com announced the forthcoming release of InternetForms Management Server, a production, distribution, and management center for InternetForms deployments. Management Server reduces lifecycle costs and expands market reach for InternetForms-based e-commerce and e-business applications. It automatically deploys, installs, updates, and maintains InternetForms application components, related data files, documents, and software packages securely throughout the enterprise, across the intranet, extranet, or Internet, and to nomadic users anywhere. An addition to the company’s InternetForms Commerce System, Management Server is slated for release in December. Management Server is a key component for robust web applications utilizing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI); applications with remote, nomadic users; and those with large-scale rollouts and an increasing user base that will escalate demands on IT resources. It allows organizations to automate and streamline InternetForms deployments to browsers anywhere on the Internet without requiring intervention from end users. www.uwi.com

Collabria, Inc. announced they will market Collabria PrintCommerce e-business service for printers, print resellers and print buyers through the Ariba Network business-to-business e-commerce platform. Collabria has joined Ariba Supplier Link (ASL) program, the Ariba supplier partner initiative designed to make goods and services readily available via the Internet.

Bowstreet Software Inc. announced the commercial release of the Bowstreet Web Automation Factory, which breaks a critical e-commerce bottleneck by enabling companies to quickly deliver affordable, highly customized business-to-business Web sites for multiple customers and business partners. Bowstreet’s Web Automation Factory uses Directory Services Markup Language (DSML), an emerging e-commerce standard pioneered by Bowstreet and supported by IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle and the Sun/Netscape Alliance. The Bowstreet Web Automation Factory, based on patent-pending technology, eliminates what many industry observers believe to be the biggest obstacle to the adoption of B2B e-commerce: the challenge of creating, maintaining and linking Web sites that provide many tightly integrated B2B connections, each customized for the unique needs of a different partner or customer. With today’s tools and technology, this process is prohibitively time consuming, complex and costly, often creating a large IT backlog for new B2B capabilities and stalling critical e-commerce initiatives. In the first half of 2000, Bowstreet will launch the Bowstreet Web Services Marketplace, a central exchange on the Internet where companies can freely create, publish, capture and trade Web Services they can incorporate into their own custom B2B Web sites. The Bowstreet Web Automation Factory 1.0 has been shipping to customers since September 1999. It is currently available through Bowstreet’s direct sales force and soon will be available through selected systems integrators. The product is sold on a subscription or perpetual license basis starting at around $250,000. Bowstreet also offers professional services to assist companies in developing, deploying and managing large Web programs. Bowstreet is giving away a version of the product, called the JumpStart Edition, to qualified businesses and software professionals at no cost. The JumpStart Edition will enable these users to create custom Web sites and publish Web services for a small number of partners on the Web. The Bowstreet Web Automation Factory runs on the Sun Solaris and Microsoft Windows NT server operating systems. It requires one of these directory services: Netscape Directory Server, IBM SecureWay or Novell NDS. The Bowstreet Web Automation Factory will also be available for Microsoft Active Directory and Oracle Directory Server. www.bowstreet.com

Ariba, Inc. Siebel Systems, Inc. announced an alliance that will integrate Ariba eCommerce solutions and the Ariba Network platform with Siebel Front Office Applications. As a result of the integration of Siebel Front Office Applications and the Ariba Network platform, organizations can access the Ariba cXML Internet Catalog and link to the supplier’s Web site to search for, configure and select products using Siebel eSales. Siebel eSales, a core component of the Siebel Front Office family, allows suppliers to deploy eCommerce sites that include a rich multimedia product catalog, on-line quotations, a product configurator to configure solutions, and the ability to take orders for business to businesses and business to consumer eCommerce over the web. The Siebel eSales application then transfers the selected products and services into the Ariba user’s electronic purchase requisition via cXML data feeds, which the Ariba application routes for approval according to the buying organization’s business rules. Once a customer places an order with a supplier, all of the specific information associated with that individual customer will be automatically captured in Siebel Front Office Applications and instantly shared across Siebel Systems’ sales, marketing and customer service information systems. Both companies plan to make Siebel Front Office Applications and Ariba eCommerce connectivity available to their customers in Q1 2000. www.ariba.com, www.siebel.com