BroadVision enhances b-to-b packages with Java

by Paul Krill

June 19, 2001 —

Broadvision Inc. on Monday announced the availability of Version 6.0 of both its Business Commerce and MarketMaker products, Java-enhanced offerings that feature personalization and improved time to market.

The new business-to-business e-commerce products feature JavaServer Pages (JSPs), and contain a variety of pre-built JSP templates and workflows for configuring and extending applications quickly, according to BroadVision. This functionality will result in faster time to market and reduce integration expenses, the company said.

BroadVision Business Commerce is for business-to-business selling. The product can provide catalog presentations and specific contract pricing, and field sales representatives can use the information to support a sale, according to Simon King, vice president of advanced strategy at BroadVision in Redwood City, Calif.

BroadVision MarketMaker is focused on private trading exchanges, featuring supplier enablement and catalog management, King said.

Key to the products is inclusion of BroadVision's One-to-One Enterprise 6.0, a J2EE-enabled e-business application platform.

"J2EE is a standards-based architecture and it allows for a more productive development environment, with a key strength in system integration, which is very important for b-to-b systems," King said.

Users can develop personalized business-to-business commerce sites, private and public exchanges, and virtual demand networks using the products.

A BroadVision user said he anticipates it will be easier to alter business processes through the addition of the new Java functionality.

"From what I've been hearing from our technical people, it makes sense that some of the Java templates, etc., are going to [make it] far easier for us to implement business processes that we have had the desire to change," said Dar Hackbarth, manager of e-Commerce and marketing Communications at Aviall Services, a distributor of aviation parts based in Dallas.

Both products enable information exchange across a variety of trading networks, according to the company. Offline business models can be replicated online through the use of BroadVision's application suite.

Additionally, the products support wireless and call center connectivity.

A typical BroadVision system has had an average selling price of US$500,000 in the first quarter of this year, according to King.

InfoWorld.com