E Information Services is entering the extranet systems integration business, aimin
g at IT departments that want to make their extranets as strategic as their enterprise resource planning systems. GEIS plans to unveil today Enterprise Commerce, a set of integration and consulting services for corporate extranets that will package applications and middleware from GEIS and other vendors such as Oracle, Netscape Communications, and Hewlett-Packard.
Enterprise Commerce is the latest piece of GEIS's multipronged, products-and-services attack on the business-to-business electronic-commerce market, which the company predicts will grow to $5 billion by the year 2000. In addition to its traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) software and value-added network, GEIS sells E-commerce software through its Actra Business Systems joint venture with Netscape and also operates the GE Trading Process Network, one of the most successful corporate purchasing Web sites to date.
As commercial extranets become more common, GEIS is betting that corporate IT managers already have too much on their pla
tes and will look to outsource the building and operation of those extranets. "With year 2000 conversion pressures and everything else, we're seeing more interest in outsourcing and a return to core competencies," says Harvey Seegers, president of GEIS, in Rockville, Md.
GEIS breaks down its Enterprise Commerce services into four offerings. They are business-critical extranets, designed for high-volume transactions with highest-level security; Internet E-commerce extranets, which extend traditional EDI to the Internet; turnkey extranets, or full-service, built-from-scratch E-commerce systems; and custom E-commerce extranets for companies with highly specialized needs. All can be implemented on virtual private networks as well as the public Internet. Pricing ranges from $50,000 to several million dollars.
Buy Vs. Build
GEIS hopes to capitalize on the same type of buy vs. build decisions that propelled the growth of ERP software and related implementation services in recent years. "ERP syst
ems from SAP, Baan, and Oracle are what in-house IT staffs used to do," says Doug Wolford, general manager of GE's Global Internet Solutions division. "As companies look to get the same benefits with their trading partners via extranets as they did internally with ERP, they'll find that the skills to run an electronic community don't often exist within companies."
Among Enterprise Commerce beta customers is Star System Inc., a San Diego operator of automated teller and point-of-sale networks for 900 financial institutions. GEIS designed a secure extranet for Star that lets its member banks resolve errors and discrepancies online.
GE's soup-to-nuts approach jibes with research findings released last week by Gartner Group, which predict that companies that aren't early adopters of E-commerce will turn to outside vendors for help. "There's a disconnect between what's offered in the market today and the fundamental requirements of business," says Barbara Reilly, research director of E-commerce and extrane
t applications at Gartner Group, in Stamford, Conn. "Companies will have to piece together solutions using integrators, consultants, or outsourcing."
With Enterprise Commerce, GEIS is betting that it can wear all three of those hats at once.
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E Information Services is entering the extranet systems integration business, aimin
g at IT departments that want to make their extranets as strategic as their enterprise resource planning systems. GEIS plans to unveil today Enterprise Commerce, a set of integration and consulting services for corporate extranets that will package applications and middleware from GEIS and other vendors such as Oracle, Netscape Communications, and Hewlett-Packard.
