InformationWeek

December 8, 1997

HP Bolsters Internet Software Strategy

Moves include process-change framework; IBM readies content hosting service

By Bruce Caldwell , Clinton Wilder , and Gregory Dalton

ewlett-Packard last week made a slew of announcements designed to fortify its beachhead in Internet technology. The company unveiled an Internet software unit, a framework for automating changes in business processes, and an alliance with financial services companies to create a platform for handling online payments.

The big systems manufacturer also announced a separate sales force dedicated to selling HP software.

The company's process-change framework, called HP Changengine, is designed to help companies quickly change the flow of work among personnel, computers, and business partners. HP says the Internet requires such technology because it results in rapid alte rations in relationships with suppliers, distributors, customers, and employees.

"The strategic nature of Changengine in HP's philosophy is very exciting," says Ronni Marshak, editor-in-chief of the Workgroup Computing Report at the Patricia Seybold Group, an IT consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. Other workflow and rules engines have been applied to individual business processes, she says, but Changengine is an architecture that can address an entire business.

Flexible Processes
Japan's Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. picked Changengine in June to automate 800 business processes using imaging technologies and an intranet. About 25% of the processes are to be automated by mid-1998, with the remainder to be done by 2000. Company officials say the project will help make pricing and customer service more competitive and offer flexibility to adapt to new sales channels.

Another Changengine customer announced by HP is Switzerland-based Bank Sarasin & Cie, which is using the framework to dev elop customer-service applications such as individual portfolio management. HP also says customers are conducting 40 pilots with Changengine.

HP also unveiled AdminFlow, an application based on Changengine for handling administrative processes such as petty-cash management and IT provisioning. HP says it used AdminFlow internally to automate 23 processes, cutting costs by $8 million a year. The product is priced at $60 per user, and is expected to be followed by SmartContact, a call-center application.

HP says it agreed with Netscape Communications to develop new process-automation and workflow products using Changengine and Netscape Directory Server software. The resulting applications will move routine paper-based business forms such as expense reports, travel requests, and budget approvals onto intranets, or extend them via extranets to partners and suppliers, according to the companies.

HP says it will use Directory Server for its Internet products and customize AdminFlow to integrate with Di rectory Server and the Netscape ONE platform. HP will also port Ariba Technologies' Java-based online-procurement application to HP platforms and market it to HP customers.

Also last week, HP, its VeriFone unit, and EDS announced the establishment of First Global Commerce, a financial services alliance including Citibank, Mondex, Paymentech, Royal Bank of Canada, Sumitomo Credit, Visa, and Wells Fargo. The alliance's online payment schemes are likely to compete at least partially with IBM-led banking consortium Integrion and MSFDC, a venture of Microsoft and First Data.

This week, HP will announce it will market ExpressVault, which combines American Express' online shopping and payment services with HP's Unix and Windows NT-based Domain Enterprise Servers and VirtualVault security. HP will market ExpressVault to Internet service providers that host online merchants. EarthLink Network and MindSpring Enterprises have already signed up.

E-Commerce At Internet World
In other E-commerce new s, IBM will announce at Fall Internet World this week in New York a content-hosting service for Web sites that run on Microsoft Internet Information Server and Windows NT. In addition, IBM Global Services will roll out Asset Services, an offering that lets companies track internal PC inventories over the Internet, with the data hosted on a Lotus Domino server at IBM.

Other IBM announcements will include VisualAge Internet development tools and the Institute for Advanced Commerce, a think tank to examine new E-commerce technologies and their impact on customers and other companies.

Also at Internet World, AMP Inc.'s eMerce Internet Solutions hosting service for commerce sites will announce a new online mall with customers including Hershey Foods Corp.

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