FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
NETSCAPE AND ACTRA DELIVER PUBLISHINGXPERT 2.0,
SELLERXPERT, AND ECXPERT FOR FOR BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET COMMERCE
New Products Round Out Netscape® CommerceXpert Family
and Complete Netscape's Strategy of Linking People and
Businesses Together via Extranets
MOUNTAIN VIEW AND SUNNYVALE, Calif. (September 16,
1997) Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP)
and Actra, a Netscape/GE Information Services joint venture, today
announced the delivery of key products in the Netscape®
CommerceXpert family developed by Actra for conducting
business-to-business Internet commerce. Netscape PublishingXpert
2.0 and Netscape SellerXpert on Sun Solaris and Netscape ECXpert for Windows NT
are scheduled for availability within the next 30 days from Netscape
and its channel partners. The products complete the CommerceXpert
family of solutions that are a key part of Netscape’s strategy of linking
people and businesses together via Extranets and the Internet.
"Netscape’s strategy is to offer revolutionary software and services
that link people and businesses together, providing companies with
new avenues for revenue growth at reduced operational costs," said
Marc Andreessen, executive vice president of products at Netscape.
"The CommerceXpert family does just that, enabling customers to
easily conduct business-to-business transactions and connect to the
millions of people daily who look to the Internet as a resource for
information, goods and services."
"Actra's mission since April 1996 has been to combine our business
expertise and Internet technology leadership to deliver
next-generation Internet commerce applications that allow customers
to link to their trading partner community in ways never before
feasible or affordable," said Jim Sha, chief executive officer at Actra.
"We are now delivering to the market solutions that are open, scalable
and flexible for high-end Internet and business-to-business
commerce."
Netscape and its channel partners are delivering to market the
CommerceXpert family of Internet commerce application solutions
developed by Actra. These applications allow business-to-business
and business-to-consumer commerce to be conducted on the
Internet. The family consists of five products focused on buying,
selling and merchandising over the Internet and on leveraging existing
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and enterprise application
investments. They are: ECXpert, SellerXpert, BuyerXpert,
MerchantXpert and PublishingXpert.
Many customers, such as Hitatchi, Bell Canada, Boise Cascade,
Wells Fargo, Bay Networks, IDG, Sun Microsystems, Sweden Post
and CBS Sportsline are already benefiting from CommerceXpert
products with reduced costs and improved customer
satisfaction.fective alternative to the traditional proprietary VAN
solution.
"As an industry leader, it is important that we establish protected and
effective lines of communication with our customers, sales and
marketing organizations," said James Rey, director of Marketing
Communications at Hitachi Semiconductor (America), Inc.
"PublishingXpert helps us utilize the cost efficiencies of the Internet
through a scalable and encrypted system of transmitting data and
exchanging customer specific and sales responsibility information
immediately without manual intervention. We expect to see immediate
savings in processing costs and to make critical business decisions
based on the information gathered from this system."
Netscape PublishingXpert 2.0 is a complete, fully scalable business
solution for publishing, delivering and selling a broad range of content
and services to people and businesses via Extranets and the Internet.
PublishingXpert 2.0 is an extensive upgrade to the Netscape
Publishing System 1.6 and features numerous product enhancements.
It has been completely re-architected as a high-end, multi-tiered
distributed application based on the Netscape ONE platform.
Aimed at high-end commerce sites and Extranets, PublishingXpert
meets a wide variety of content-based Internet commerce needs for
business-to-business publishing, business-to-consumer publishing,
Extranet/field support and ISP/multi-hosting services. The product
also offers personalized content delivery, management of content,
encrypted payment capabilities, subscription and billing services,
advanced search capabilities and centralized administration
capabilities.
PublishingXpert 2.0 is also enhanced through technology partnerships
with CyberCash, NetObjects, PLS and Verity, who provide
additional "best of class" features. CyberCash's technology enables
complete end-to-end, encrypted payment transactions on the Internet,
while NetObjects Fusion enhances PublishingXpert's Web
site-building capabilities. PLS's search technology eases the workload
of site administrators and provides powerful site-navigation for
end-users. Verity's software tools and applications allow searching,
retrieving and filtering information across the Internet and the
enterprise.
ECXpert is an Internet-centric electronic commerce system that
allows companies to exchange critical business information between
applications and trading partners within or outside the enterprise.
ECXpert provides a powerful underlying framework that efficiently
handles encrypted data communications and structured data mapping
over private and public networks with improved audit and control.
The product exploits the real-time cost-effectiveness of the Internet
by reaching to second- and third-tier suppliers that have access to an
Internet browser as well as extending legacy EDI networks and
enterprise applications.
SellerXpert is a scalable application that allows a corporation to
provide an online selling presence to its customers, partners and
suppliers via the Internet. It provides protected, managed self-service
ordering around-the-clock, reducing operational costs and improving
customer satisfaction. Integrated with enterprise applications,
SellerXpert’s seamless ordering solution provides users with a strong
competitive and marketing advantage. SellerXpert provides
out-of-the-box functionality that delivers results quickly for a rapid
return on investment. It centrally manages up-to-date product
information, tracks sales and analyzes purchasing patterns while
eliminating the need for print catalog distribution. By improving sales
order accuracy and reducing sales order processing costs,
SellerXpert helps improve bottom-line as well as top-line revenue.
ECXpert on Sun Solaris is available now from Netscape and its
channel partners. ECXpert on Windows NT and PublishingXpert 2.0
and SellerXpert on Sun Solaris are all scheduled to be available within
the next 30 days. PublishingXpert comes with Netscape Enterprise
Server and Oracle Enterprise Server is the supported database.
Other platforms for PublishingXpert will follow including SGI IRIX
and Microsoft Windows NT scheduled for availability in Q497 and
Q198, respectively. Pricing for ECXpert begins at US$50,000.
Pricing for PublishingXpert begins at US$75,000. Pricing for
SellerXpert begins at US$195,000.
Founded in April 1996, Actra is a joint venture between Netscape
Communications Corporation and GE Information Services (GEIS).
Benefiting from GEIS' market expertise as the world's leading
provider of business-to-business Internet commerce services and
Netscape's leading position in developing and marketing software for
the Internet, Actra provides next-generation Internet commerce
applications solutions for both business-to-consumer and
business-to-business commerce markets. Additionally, Actra is taking
an active role in promoting open standards for Internet commerce.
Netscape Communications Corporation is a leading provider of open
software for linking people and information over enterprise networks
and the Internet. The company offers a full line of clients, servers, development tools and
commercial applications to create a complete platform for
next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under
the symbol "NSCP," Netscape Communications Corporation is
based in Mountain View, California.
Netscape and the Netscape logo are registered trademarks of Netscape
Communications Corporation which is registered in the United States and other
jurisdictions. Netscape product names are trademarks
of Netscape Communications Corporation which may be
registered in some jurisdictions. CommerceXpert,
PublishingXpert, MerchantXpert, SellerXpert,
BuyerXpert, and ECXpert are trademarks of Actra.
Additional information on Netscape Communications
Corporation is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com
or by sending email to moreinfo@netscape.com.
Corporate customers can call 415-937-2555 while
consumers can call 415-937-3777 for more information.
For more information about Actra: http://www.actracorp.com.
Netscape PublishingXpert
2.0 Customer Testimonials
Business-to-Business Publishing Customers:
Sun Microsystems:
Any organization needing to securely share and sell
its knowledge capital in either a business to
consumer or business to business commerce environment
can do so in a managed and controlled way using
PublishingXpert. For example, Sun Microsystems's
software business unit SunSoft, uses the Publishing
System to distribute and communicate information to
its worldwide field organization and its channel
affiliates on product and marketing developments.
"We evaluated other publishing systems, and
based on low cost-of-ownership and technical
superiority, selected PublishingXpert's powerful
publishing engine to drive the Webber Extranet,"
said Nelson French, director of sales & channels
support, SunSoft Inc. "The Webber Extranet is a
key element to the success of Sun's global software
channels program in communicating up-to-date
information to our affiliates and resellers."
Hitatchi:
"As an industry leader, it is important that we
establish protected and effective lines of
communication with our customers, sales and marketing
organizations," said James Rey, Director of
Marketing Communications, Hitachi Semiconductor
(America), Inc. "PublishingXpert helps us
utilize the cost efficiencies of the Internet through
a scalable and secure system of transmitting data and
exchanging customer specific and sales responsibility
information immediately without manual intervention.
We expect to see immediate savings in processing
costs and to make critical business decisions based
on the information gathered from this system."
Business to Consumer Publishing Customers:
PublishingXpert has had significant success in the
business to consumer publishing market. With an
installed base of 75 high-end sites, customers
include the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal,
IDG Communications, LA Times, Washington Post and CBS
SportsLine.
International Data Group:
PC World, a subsidiary of International Data Group
(IDG), is the world's largest monthly personal
computing publication. PC World Online (http://www.pcworld.com/),
the magazine’s online services group, last year
selected Netscape Publishing System v1.6 as the
foundation for their paid-subscription publishing
operations online, and is in the process of upgrading
their system infrastructure to PublishingXpert v2.0.
Commenting on the choice of PublishingXpert, Adam
Block, Director of Product Development for PC
World’s Online Services Group, said, "PC
World Online has been publishing on the Internet for
more than two years but the product marks the first
time we have charged a subscription fee for access to
our content. PublishingXpert will allow us to rapidly
expand PC World Online and to launch other
subscription-based sites with minimal incremental
effort. Key factors in our decision to choose
PublishingXpert were its scalable architecture and
multi-hosting capability. Scalability is extremely
important, as we expect many of our over 1.1 million
print subscribers to take advantage of our new
premium online content. Every new site that we launch
has to be able to over time support the very high
volume of traffic that the popular and freely
available IDG publications are experiencing today.
PublishingXpert’s multi-hosting capability
allows us to serve a wide variety of unique
publications based on the same infrastructure, using
common billing, staging, and customer service
components. This is a strong package that meets our
feature and flexibility standards and fits our
budget. PC World Online and other IDG publications
will continue to publish superior for-pay products,
and we look forward to working with Actra and
Netscape as we constantly improve our Internet
offerings."
CBS Sportsline:
CBS SportsLine takes advantage of PublishingXpert's
capabilities to manage membership and premium product
sales and to control access to non-member information
contained within its vast sports online service. Tom
Eastwood, chief technical officer of SportsLine USA,
Inc., publisher of CBS SportsLine, said, "The
CBS SportsLine site contains more than 100,000 pages
of information, available to consumers through a
variety of membership and premium package plans. It
is crucial that we have a flexible system tailored to
our needs, allowing us to effectively and efficiently
process registrations and credit card orders and
manage access to our content. PublishingXpert
provides the tools we need to stay on top of our
game."
Actra contact:
Suzanne Burnip
(408) 542-3181
