ITASCA, Ill. (May 20, 1997) Drawing upon its
expertise in procurement systems for Fortune 1000 companies,
Boise Cascade Office Products has teamed up with Actra, a
joint venture between Netscape and GE Information Services,
to help develop and beta-test applications solutions for
Actra CrossCommerce, a cross platform family of application
solutions for conducting Internet commerce.
As a beta-test partner in Actra's development of
CrossCommerce, Boise will incorporate two Actra
CrossCommerce solutions, ECXpert and OrderXpert Seller, into
Internet 97 (I-97), the customer Internet ordering system
Boise launched in January 1997
(http://www.bcop.com).
Actra CrossCommerce, officially unveiled today by Actra,
is the only product family built from the ground up on
Internet standards that focus on the needs of Fortune 1000
companies implementing inter-enterprise Internet commerce
application solutions with customers and suppliers. Actra
CrossCommerce supports Internet-based commerce objectives
that provide for information consistency, integrity, control
and system administration.
ECXpert, the foundation product of Actra CrossCommerce
that translates and maps data to and from any format, will
be released commercially on May 30. OrderXpert Seller will
be available in the third quarter of 1997 and OrderXpert
Buyer in the fourth quarter. These flexible solutions enable
buyers and sellers to customize Internet commerce systems.
As a member of a consortium seeking to develop a
standards-based system for secure Internet ordering, Boise
began working with Actra at its conception in April 1996, to
provide specifications to build a business-to-business
electronic commerce system.
"At that time, there was a major void in the marketplace
for flexible business-to-business solutions to help buyers
and sellers communicate more easily and effectively during
transactions", said Laurie Beeson, vice president of
marketing at Boise. Boise and other industry leaders
recognized that Internet technology would drive the future
of electronic commerce, so we approached Netscape to help us
build an Internet-centric foundation.
The result of the consortium was the design of three
business-to-business solutions to support buyers and sellers
with Internet purchasing.
"For nearly a decade, Boise has been an industry leader
in utilizing electronic commerce to customize and streamline
ordering processes for its customers, said Ray Rike, vice
president of sales and marketing, Actra. Boise's knowledge
of the customer/supplier relationship, especially as it
relates to purchasing habits and models, helped us to create
customer-centric solutions that were functionally rich and
intuitive.
Boise Beta Tests First CrossCommerce Products on I-97
In the last few months, Boise has tested ECXpert and
OrderXpert Seller. Testing Actra CrossCommerce with select
customers, Boise will be leveraging the flexibility of the
new solutions to develop more customized and streamline
ordering systems for its customers.
Boise is always searching for new ways to improve process
efficiencies to eliminate redundancies and reduce hidden
costs, and Actra CrossCommerce enabled us to do that, said
Beeson. Boise intends to integrate Actra CrossCommerce as
much as possible with I-97 to deliver a more flexible and
customer-friendly Internet ordering system.
Boise Adds New Features to I-97 to Provide Customers with
More Convenience and Customization
Boise will incorporate ECXpert into I-97 to improve
communication functions with customers. ECXpert will reduce
processing time for customer order requests by eliminating
the need for Boise to use both a VAN (value added network)
and EDI translation software. ECXpert will also enable
companies to protect their existing investments in their
legacy systems by allowing data to be passed in any file
format.
Boise has also recently introduced several new customer
features to I-97:
EZ Order Forms -- Boise customers can create shopping
lists of frequently ordered products and place them on pull
down menus for easy point and click ordering
Unlimited Approval Levels -- Administrators can set up
customized routing systems to ensure that all orders receive
proper approval before they are forwarded to Boise
Future enhancements to I-97, which will be rolled out
throughout 1997, will provide these additional benefits:
Order Consolidation -- Orders can be consolidated by cost
centers to deliver products directly to consignees
Item restrictions -- I-97 can place budget and/or
quantity restrictions on ordering by individual groups or
users
Usage reports -- Customers can more closely monitor and
manage purchasing with standard or customized usage reports
available on request
Boise Cascade Office Products Corp. is the premier
business-to-business distributor of products for the office,
with operations in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and
the United States.
For more information on Actra's CrossCommerce contact
Actra at (408) 542-3181 or toll-free at 1-888-706-2600, or
check out Actra's web page at
http://www.actracorp.com.
Alternatively, call one of Actra's authorized dealers: GE
Information Services at 1-800-560-4347 or Netscape
Communications Corporation at 1-800-638-7483.
