News Briefs

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Chase, Deloitte Consulting create eProcurement venture

Chase Manhattan and Deloitte Consulting are forming a new company to provide complete “purchase-to-payment” e-procurement services to Fortune 1000 companies.

The new company will combine the reach and expertise of Chase and Deloitte Consulting. The new entity, plus soon-to-be announced alliance partners, will target “indirect” procurement processes; this will includes the procurement of all items not used to produce a company’s core product, such as microcomputers, temporary help, and office supplies.

The new company’s underlying technology will be open and interoperable with all major e-procurement and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. The new venture will announce that Intelisys Electronic Commerce, the e-procurement provider to Chase, will become an alliance partner for Web-based procurement applications and the creation of on-line purchasing communities.

Baan to sell Coda financials business

As part of its ongoing business portfolio rationalization program, Baan has agreed to sell its CODA business, including the CODA Financials and CODA e-Finance accounting and financial software, to Science Systems.

Under the terms of the offer, Science Systems will pay approximately $50 million in cash for the assets and operations of CODA. Baan expects to report a gain of approximately $30 million on this transaction. Both the purchase price and reported gain are subject to finalization as part of the closing process. Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed before the end of March 2000. Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

J.D. Edwards and IBM to deliver electronic storefront solution

J.D. Edwards and IBM have entered into a global sales and product alliance in which they will collaborate to deliver an integrated storefront; that this storefront extends and enhances J.D. Edwards ActivEra Solution for customer relationship management, Active CRM.

Under the agreement, J.D. Edwards will resell IBM’s flexible and scaleable electronic storefront technology, IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite (WCS), integrated with J.D. Edwards OneWorld ERP suite. J.D. Edwards and IBM have developed the integration between OneWorld and WCS using IBM’s Commerce Integrator Server and MQSeries messaging and information middleware.

J.D. Edwards and Siebel expand partnership

J.D. Edwards has expanded its alliance with Siebel Systems to encompass Siebel’s full suite of e-business applications.

In April 1999, J.D. Edwards became the first worldwide reseller of Siebel’s market leading e-business applications. J.D. Edwards has now committed to integrate its component-based OneWorld with all of Siebel Systems’ e-business applications, including marketing, sales, call center, customer service, field service, and channel management applications.

Siebel Systems and J.D. Edwards currently plan to deliver comprehensive integration between Siebel and OneWorld applications by year’s end 2000. J.D. Edwards debuts ActivEra solutions

J.D. Edwards has introduced ActivEra Solutions powered by OneWorld, a collection of e-business suites that leverage digital assets to activate transactions and facilitate information sharing throughout the virtual enterprise.

J.D. Edwards’ ActivEra Solutions provide organizations with a standards-based, interoperable, and highly customizable infrastructure to support their business initiatives. They include: Active Supply Chain; Active Customer Relationship Management; Active Enterprise; Active Procurement;: Active Marketplace; Active Knowledge Management; and Active Foundation.

PeopleSoft to offer SCM food and beverage industry

PeopleSoft has partnered with Bradley Ward Systems to provide a complete supply chain management (SCM) solution to the food and beverage industry.

Bradley Ward’s KEY2Success product suite will be integrated with the PeopleSoft Supply Chain Management products to seamlessly plan, monitor, control, and document food processes for safety and quality, and improve real-time data flow to management systems for supply chain synchronization. The combined food and beverage industry SCM solution will include PeopleSoft solutions for Trade Promotions, Customer Fulfillment, Inventory Planning, Demand Management, and Lead Time reduction software modules, as well as PeopleSoft Manufacturing.

The PeopleSoft-Bradley Ward integration is scheduled for release in the second quarter of 2000 with PeopleSoft 8.0.

Remedy to extend eCRM functionality

Remedy plans to expand the functionality of its own e-customer relationship management (eCRM) software through the acquisition of the assets of Axtive Software, a provider of relationship marketing software and services.

Axtive’s products – including eTransaxtion Server, eRegistration, and eMonogram -allow organizations to personalize interactions with their Web site visitors. When iIntegrated in the Remedy Customer Relationship Management Solutions and Remedy Help Desk applications, Axtive will offers easy- to-use and affordable Web personalization that both leverages and enriches the central customer database used by all Remedy applications.

An integrated solution using Axtive technology with Remedy’s solutions will be available later this year.

Sun and InterWorld to offer retailers e-commerce solutions

Sun Microsystems and InterWorld are offering Retail Essentials, an enterprise commerce solution for the retail industry. The Retail Essentials solution set offers dot-com and brick-and-mortar retailers a blend of software, hardware, networking, and consulting services that enable them to go to market quickly and begin maximizing the profitability of their online storefront.

The Retail Essentials offering incorporates Sun’s SPARC-based hardware and the Solaris operating system and InterWorld’s Commerce Exchange solution. In addition, Cisco Systems, through its relationship with InterWorld, will provide e-commerce infrastructure and best practices expertise for the Retail Essentials solution set.

Epicor to resell Clarus eProcurement software

Epicor Software has formed a strategic partnership with Clarus under which Epicor will integrate and sell the Clarus eProcurement solution with its own enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite.

Epicor plans to integrate the eProcurement offering across its products as a Web commerce component that will enable organizations to gain and improve control of their critical operational resources worldwide.

FutureLink to acquire thin client solutions provider

Application service provider (ASP) FutureLink has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Charon Systems, a provider of systems integration and Citrix-based IT services and solutions.

Under the terms of the agreement, FutureLink will pay total consideration of $31.3 million consisting of $6.95 million in cash and 1.073 million shares of FutureLink common shares for 100% of Charon.

Institute offers ERP project management

Gartner Institute has launched an IT Project Management Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Specialization certification program. The certification program consists of a training course, available today at over 96 locations worldwide, and a certification exam, available at Sylvan Prometric testing centers worldwide.

The program is designed for IT practitioners who expect to work on projects that involve new implementations or upgrades to ERP systems; itand covers core ERP project management techniques, including business requirements, blended workforce project organization, change control, closure, and entry, exit, and acceptance criteria issues, change control, and closure. Some pre-requisites are required.