September 15, 1997

Digital To Launch Service For Processing Online Sales Vendor will provide hardware, software, and integration By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee igital Equipment last week introduced a service for financial institutions and retailers aiming to launch electronic-commerce efforts. Digital's Worldwide Services group will provide the hardware, software, and integration needed to enable financial institutions to provide credit-card processing for retailers and manufacturers that want to sell products over the Internet. Wells Fargo & Co., the San Francisco financial services company, is one of the first to sign up for the service. Wells Fargo, t ogether with Digital, Microsoft, and VeriFone, is offering a version of the service to Wells Fargo customers called virtualStore. With virtualStore, Digital will provide services to Wells Fargo's business customers who want to use the bank's credit-card processing to sell over the Internet. Included in the package are Pentium Pro-based Prioris servers running Microsoft Merchant software, as well as planning and implementation services needed to link the Wells Fargo customer to the bank, says Ted McKie, director of business development for Digital's Internet and intranet services practice. Additionally, Digital will offer other, related E-commerce services, including building extranets and firewalls "that keep the bad people out and allow the good people in corporate intranets," says McKie. Digital will aim to build and deploy these systems on a two- to four-week schedule, he says. Digital's intranet outsourcing service, established 18 months ago, is becoming the fastest-growing part of Digital' s outsourcing business, says Tom Iannotti, VP of worldwide marketing and sales at the company's multivendor customer-service unit. He would not disclose Digital's intranet-related services revenue. Digital generated nearly half of its $14 billion in revenue from services last year. About 27% of its service revenue was contributed by network and systems integration services, including intranet-related services. With its new service, Digital aims to tap a huge emerging market: Forrester Research estimates that retail electronic commerce will grow from about $500 million this year to $7 billion in the year 2000. Back to News in Review Send Us Your Feedback Top of the Page

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