Comergent is one of several vendors attempting to sell partner-relationship management software. But unlike most of its competitors, which focus primarily on building communities and automating the traditional indirect sales channel, Comergent is concerned almost entirely with reconciling businesses' E-commerce and channel activities.

The upgrade, Comergent Distributed E-Business System 3.0, works toward that end by offering E-commerce tools that strengthen the links between customers shopping online and the resellers and distributors who fulfill product orders. The Comergent Partner Marketplace lets channel partners handle product requests, shop for goods, and link to other partners. Commerce Catalog lets customers and resellers search for products across multiple distributor databases so they can be sure they are giving the lowest possible prices and that the products are available in the configuration they desire. Comergent Marketplace Analyzer tracks customer and partner activity, then looks for trends among them.

Networking vendor Cisco Systems is using the Comergent technology, which it helped develop, for its indirect channel E-commerce initiative. So far, the technology has had dramatic effects--the average time a reseller takes to configure and place an order with a distributor has fallen from 80 minutes to 20 minutes, and Cisco expects it to fall further. Product returns have also been reduced because the system verifies the product configurations to make sure they're valid.

Mike Odenheimer, Cisco's senior manager of Internet strategy, says the technology strengthens the often-tenuous connection among resellers and distributors and online customers. That's important for businesses that have both indirect channels and E-commerce initiatives. "If users go into a site and it's not perfect, they won't come back," Odenheimer says.