InformationWeek

November 24, 1997

Microsoft Demos Linkage Of Supply-Chain Software

E-commerce push is company's biggest

icrosoft last week demonstrated the first "proof of concept" of its nine-month-old Value Chain Initiative, a far-reaching effort using Microsoft tools and platforms to integrate disparate supply-chain applications for electronic commerce.

Hosted by Microsoft executive VP and chief operating officer Bob Herbold at Microsoft headquarters, in Redmond, Wash., the demo showed Windows applications from 11 vendors sharing data to navigate a shipment of PCs through a computer maker's loading dock, distribution center, and transportation carriers. The company in the demo was hypothetical, but Compaq Computer says it will use tools and applications that comply with the initiative to link its applications with those of its trading partners.

The initiative represents Microsoft's biggest push to date in the burgeoning business-to-business E-commerce market. Its goal is to marshal armies of third-party application developers to link their programs using Microsoft products, including NT Server, SQL Server, Site Server, and the Common Object Model (COM). Unveiled last week, Commerce Interchange Pipeline, which will be included in the next version of Site Server Enterprise, due by mid-1998, will enable the exchange of COM-based data objects between business applications.

Apps Linked By Microsoft's Value Chain

Planning and scheduling

Transportation management

Logistics modeling

EDI transport

Supply-chain analysis
DATA: MICROSOFT, VALUE CHAIN INITIATIVE MEMBERS

Applications conforming to the initiative will communicate over any network-the Internet, EDI value-added networks, and virtual private networks. "We're absolutely transport-agnostic," says Mark Walker, worldwide marketing manager for transportation, EDI, and distribution at Microsoft. Walker says 130 application vendors, including Baan, SAP, and PeopleSoft, have joined the initiative since its launch in February.

The success of a 100%-Microsoft-platform approach to supply-chain integration may depend on the scalability of NT. "We're ultimately talking about very high-volume transactions," says Erina DuBois, an analyst at Dataquest in San Jose, Calif. "But it's still very early in the game, and Microsoft is pouring a lot of money into NT."

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