Netscape Communications Corp and GE Information Services Inc’s Actra Corp joint venture will today unveil the fruits of its labors: a combination called Actra CrossCommerce, comprising Netscape’s Merchant and Publishing systems with a suite of servers on top to adapt existing legacy EDI systems and accommodate new merchants and buyers as well. Actra reckons offerings such as Microsoft’s Merchant Server, now renamed Site Server, and Oracle’s Internet commerce Server and nice enabling technologies – very similar to Netscape’s Merchant and Publishing systems – but the Actra system is enabling technology plus applications that mean the users don’t have to do such things as compose purchase orders themselves, they are done automatically. For instance, says Paula Cappello, senior director of marketing at Actra, Oracle hasn’t figured out how to do messaging yet. The foundation product of the Actra CrossCommerce package is ECXpert, which takes existing EDI applications and converts them for web use, by IP-enabling them. Companies can recreate their EDI data forms within a browser, and then connect to any other user that has a browser – EDI is not needed at both ends. ECXpert is out at the end of this month. The OrderXpert comprises two parts; OrderXpert Buyer and OrderXpert Seller. It is meant for order management, customer identity management, payment options, cataloging and so on. The Seller module would be used for regular transactions, and the Buyer part would be used in a kind of extranet set-up, for the most regular customers to streamline and automate their order processing from the seller. OrderXpert Seller goes into beta in a few weeks with rollout expected next quarter, with the Buyer following in the fourth quarter. The other two elements are what Netscape itself sells as Merchant systems and Publishing System. Actra markets it as MerchantXpert and PublishingXpert, but will rev both for release next quarter and the fourth quarter respectively. All of it is up on Solaris initially, and although Netscape develops simultaneously on Solaris and Windows NT, the NT version will lag about six to eight weeks behind, according to Cappello. Although Actra is a 50:50 joint venture between GE and Netscape, it’s clear where the balance lies; Netscape does the technology, and Actra provides the money and distribution chains. Actra CEO Jim Sha was formerly in charge of Merchant Systems and Publishing System at Netscape. GE is the preferred systems integrator for Netscape while Netscape will do the selling. Cappello said Actra may look for OEM relationships overseas.
