What is
Actra CommerceXpert?
Actra
CommerceXpert is an integrated family of Internet
commerce application solutions for conducting
business-to-business and business-to-consumer
commerce on the Internet. The family consists of five
products focused on buying, selling and merchandising
over the Internet.
ECXpert:
EDI for the Internet
ECXpert is
the foundation member of Actra's CommerceXpert
portfolio. It enables companies to build and deploy
an internet-centric electronic commerce program.
Advantages include: secure communications;
standards-based, interoperable technology; wide
accessibility; reduced implementation and operational
costs; and protection of legacy system investments.
SellerXpert
and BuyerXpert: Corporate Buying and Selling On The
Internet
SellerXpert
allows corporations to establish an online selling
presence for their corporate clients. It helps
corporations not only increase top line revenue, but
also lower operating costs and improve customer
service. SellerXpert is a full-featured product
including comprehensive order management, seller and
buyer maintained membership, flexible payment
options, next-generation electronic product catalog,
full data transformation and EDI capability.
BuyerXpert
complements SellerXpert as an Internet procurement
system that operates in a multi-supplier,
inter-enterprise environment. Using BuyerXpert,
corporations can dramatically reduce order-processing
costs while minimizing manual buyer intervention on
low-value, high-volume transactions. By enforcing
corporate contracts and approvals, it provides
corporate control and requester self-service in a
decentralized buying environment.
MerchantXpert:
Internet Retailing
MerchantXpert
(the next release of Netscape Merchant System)
leverages the advanced order management capabilities
and object infrastructure built into SellerXpert and
applies this technology to the retailing world.
MerchantXpert will allow companies to provide an
online, personalized internet storefront supporting a
dynamic one-to-one presentation, along with product
and promotional displays and features to utilize
customer buying profile information.
PublishingXpert:
Comprehensive Extranet Publishing Solution
PublishingXpert
(the next release of Netscape Publishing System) is a
complete, end to end, business solution that allows
companies to share and sell their knowledge capital.
PublishingXpert provides a turnkey solution that
accelerates the time it takes to bring new online
services to market. It features web publishing with
robust content and document management, distributed
staging services, customer service interfaces,
granular access control, and industry-strength search
services. In addition, PublishingXpert, supports a
wide range of payment options, and a user agent
framework to perform user tracking and enable
targeted marketing. All of these features are
flexible, in that they can be completely customized
and tailored to specific business needs.
How will
Actra CommerceXpert products be priced?
Each product
in Actra CommerceXpert is individually priced.
Customers can buy one or all products as their needs
dictate. The pricing model is primarily based on the
number of processors utilized. Unlike the traditional
pricing schemes for client/server software and third
party service bureaus, Actra does not price based on
transaction volume, value of goods transacted, or
number of users. Pricing will be announced as each
new product becomes available.
When will
Actra CommerceXpert be available to customers?
Netscape
Merchant and Publishing System 1.6 were shipped to
market Q1 1997 and are currently being used by over
150 customers. Actra's new ECXpert 1.0, which has
been in beta since February, will start commercially
shipping in May 1997. The next major release of
PublishingXpert will be available in late Q3 1997 and
the next major release of MerchantXpert will be
available late 1997. SellerXpert will be in beta
testing by end of Q2 1997 and commercial shipment is
planned for late 1997. BuyerXpert is in development
and commercialization is targeted shortly after
SellerXpert .
What is
the future direction of the Publishing and Merchant
Systems?
Actra is
looking to accelerate the market penetration of
Publishing and Merchant System using leading edge
Actra, open standards technology. Publishing and
Merchant System were the first generation of internet
commerce applications from Netscape. Actra now
continues their development, working towards the
major releases of MerchantXpert and PublishingXpert.
Further enhancements will be focused on feature
functionality in the following areas; personalized
content delivery, robust merchant and publishing
content management capabilities, and flexible
back-end order and transaction management services
for high volume sights serving large bases of
customers. Actra will also continue development in
supporting the international market place as well as
the Internet Services Providers (ISP) and hosting
service markets.
How is
Actra architecting its products to provide
scalability and superior performance for high-end
Internet commerce sites?
Actra's
object oriented applications can be distributed over
any number of client and server systems for improved
performance and scalability. This model effectively
utilizes the computing capacity of several machines
simultaneously. In order for distributed objects to
"talk" to each other, Actra uses Common
Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). CORBA
provides interoperability between applications on
different machines in heterogeneous, distributed
environments and seamlessly interconnects multiple
object systems.
Actra's
application products support CORBA's Internet
Inter-ORB protocol (IIOP). IIOP is a
platform-independent, object messaging protocol that
is the open standard for communication between
internet and Intranet distributed applications. This
design supports concurrent processing. Its
multi-threaded architecture enables multiple object
requests to be handled by a single process, providing
efficient use of server resources and heightened
system performance and scalability.
On which
operating systems will Actra CommerceXpert be
available?
Solaris and
Windows NT are Actra's base development operating
systems. The May 1997 release of ECXpert 1.0 will be
on Solaris in May 1997, with a Windows NT version
following within 6-8 weeks. The Merchant and
Publishing Systems are currently available on
Solaris, HP-UX, IBM-AIX, SGI IRIX, Digital and
Siemens Nixdorf as well.
How do I
find out more about Actra and its CommerceXpert
portfolio?
More
information is available on the Actra web sites. The
public URL is: http://www.actracorp.com. Certified
Actra channel partners can find more detailed
information in the password protected channel web
site. You may also send email inquiries to
info@actracorp.com or call 1.408.542.3200.
What is
the target market for Actra CommerceXpert?
Leading
research firms project Internet commerce transactions
to grow exponentially in the next 3 years to hundreds
of billions of dollars. The market opportunity for
Internet packaged applications is accordingly
projected to reach tens of billions of dollars.
Actra
CommerceXpert is designed to meet the needs of
Fortune 1,000 companies that are implementing
inter-enterprise Internet commerce applications
solutions with their customers, partners, and
suppliers. The Merchant and Publishing Systems are
also targeted at middle tier businesses as well.
Actra is also helping organizations, such as Internet
Service Providers, to develop online trading
communities and multi-hosting environments using
Actra CommerceXpert as the infrastructure.
How does
Actra CommerceXpert fit with Netscape's CrossWare and
Extranet standards architecture?
The Actra
CommerceXpert product family is based on open,
interoperable Internet standards such as those
promoted by Netscape in its Extranet standard white
paper.
The
following illustrates how Actra's product line uses
Extranet standards. Other standards are supported as
well, such as CORBA, ANSI X12, and EDIFACT.
How does
Actra CommerceXpert fit with GEIS' current offerings?
GEIS will be
uniquely positioned to expand its current offerings
and leverage Actra CommerceXpert as a powerful
services infrastructure or customer premise software
solution. Actra's products represent an opportunity
for GEIS to continue to deliver top-quality solutions
that incorporate the latest Internet technology and
robust product functionality on a wide variety of
customer preferred platforms.
How will
Actra CommerceXpert integrate with existing
enterprise applications systems?
For Actra's
CommerceXpert products to be successful they must
integrate as transparently as possible to a company's
existing enterprise systems. To achieve this seamless
integration Actra's products will provide companies
multiple options:
Application
Program Interfaces (API's) - For connections
to enterprise system for real time data
(i.e., inventory availability), Actra will
provide API's in the products to support
direct connectivity.
Comprehensive
data transformation capabilities using
Actra's ECXpert. This any to any data
transformation will allow companies to map
Actra business objects to their enterprise
back office systems in proprietary file
protocols. The communication using these
proprietary formats can be through more
traditional batch gateways or the newly
evolving more interactive system API's (i.e.
SAP's BAPI).
EDI mapping
and translation using Actra's ECXpert. Should a
company's enterprise system be EDI enabled, ECXpert
can quickly map Actra's business objects into the
enterprise application's EDI standard documents
(i.e., SAP's IDOC) for easy integration.
Object
integration. As the enterprise applications migrate
toward object based designs in their architecture,
Actra with its current object based infrastructure
will be able to communicate with the enterprise
applications using an object/object server model.
Can Actra
CommerceXpert applications be acquired separately?
The core
component architecture inherent to all CommerceXpert
products enable a corporation to implement modules as
business needs dictate. While many of Actra's
customers are taking advantage of the synergy
available in using CommerceXpert products together,
others are installing a single product such as
SellerXpert, Publishing System, or ECXpert.
A
significant customer advantage is the investment
protection that a migration strategy provides. For
example, catalog and customer information needs vary,
and Actra CommerceXpert is extensible to accommodate
additional capabilities without disturbing the
existing environment.
Will
SellerXpert and BuyerXpert work without ECXpert, and
does ECXpert have to be purchased separately?
ECXpert is a
critical component of SellerXpert and BuyerXpert,
especially for data loading, EDI mapping and
translation, and legacy application integration.
Actra
CommerceXpert has bundled several third party
products. Why aren't these products being built by
Actra? Can other products be supported?
Actra's core
competency is business domain expertise in EDI,
buying, selling, merchandising and publishing on the
Internet and in providing an object-oriented,
multi-tier architecture for Internet computing.
Within these boundaries, we continue to make
business-based make or buy decisions to accelerate
our development cycle and maintain our focus on
business expertise and architecture. Given the open
architecture of CommerceXpert, in most cases,
standards compliant products can be substituted,
however equivalent functions will have to be assessed
on a product by product basis.
Can web
servers and browsers other than Netscape's be used?
Actra is
proud to use Netscape's Internet products, but due to
the standards-based nature of Netscape's products,
Actra could easily employ other vendors' product as
well. However, Actra has tested and certified its
products to work with Netscape. For browsers, Actra
is not vendor-specific.
How will
Actra CommerceXpert be sold?
Netscape and
GEIS have personnel dedicated to Actra as our main
distribution and support channels. For example, they
have dedicated sales teams focused on selling the
Actra portfolio. The Netscape and GEIS customer
relationships in the Fortune 1000 and Internet
commerce market vendors has already provided
overwhelming pull for Actra products. Actra will
pursue other channels as the market dictates and is
already evaluating System Integrator & OEM
relationships.
I'm a
System Integrator - why should I sell or use Actra
CommerceXpert?
All of
Actra's CommerceXpert applications are fully
integrated open standards based solutions providing a
high degree of functionality out of the box. By
providing fully integrated flexible applications,
System Integrators can focus on their core competency
of helping businesses lay in the business and
technical infrastructure to implement and maximize
the benefits of these new internet commerce
applications. By providing System Integrators with a
complete product they now have all the tools from one
vendor. Actra already has successful Netscape
commercial application (NCAPP) partners, both systems
integrators and value-added resellers that are
currently working with the Merchant and Publishing
products.
I'm a
Software Vendor - why should I integrate with Actra
CommerceXpert?
There is a
significant market of Internet software that has
already been developed for the commerce market. In
areas that the market has already standardized on
technology, Actra will be looking to partner with
software vendors to enhance Actra product
functionality.
I'm an
OEM-why should I port or bundle Actra CommerceXpert?
The Internet
commerce software market is growing exponentially
with a majority of the investment being in Internet
application software. CommerceXpert is directed at
Fortune 1000 companies and provides OEM's an
opportunity to showcase their platform through the
use of a leading edge internet commerce application
solution. The use of Actra CommerceXpert provides
OEM's the ability to offer their clients a complete
software and hardware solution for their clients
increasing their value add as well as their revenue
potential.
What
training and consulting services will be available?
All training
and consulting services for Actra products will be
available through authorized Actra representatives,
which constitutes Netscape and GEIS.
How will
Actra CommerceXpert products be supported?
First-level
support is handled by Netscape or GEIS, who maintain
a support group that is dedicated to Actra products
who have been very active in the Actra beta program.
Second level support is provided to Netscape and GEIS
by Actra.