AT&T Corp and Hewlett-Packard Co yesterday announced an agreement to join forces to promote each other’s technology in the field of electronic commerce. The two are aiming the service at companies that host their own electronic storefronts, but wish to outsource the back-end transactional services, for which the two will offer AT&T’s SecureBuy service, which includes Open Market Inc’s Transact software. HP will provide its HP Domain Enterprise Servers running either HP-UX or Windows NT and the two have also begun to develop joint products, but there were no details of what they might be or when they will appear. In addition, HP is opening up its sales channels to AT&T, whereby all of its 15,000 or so value-added resellers (VARs) will offer the SecureBuy software and services, as well as all AT&T’s website services. These include its Easy World Wide Web Service, AT&T’s advanced hosting solution; and the AT&T Enhanced Web Development Package. The deal is not exclusive for either side, as both already have e-commerce strategies with other vendors. The two companies will also incorpoarte iCat Corp’s electronic commerce suite for building web-based catalogs. HP says its Praesidium security framework will be integrated with SecureBuy over time, but it is not essential for this plan to work. And AT&T, which is currently testing the Mondex electronic wallet-based electronic payment systems, said that could find a place in this plan if the tests are successful, as it is due to be integrated into SecureBuy. HP said the deal was made before its acquisition of card processing company VeriFone Inc, but its role is being evaluated at the moment.
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