InformationWeek

Capital Stream Inc., an online marketplace for business credit approval, last week signed a deal with Textron to support the service. Capital Stream's software automates many of the application and risk-analysis steps involved in large financing arrangements by moving credit-application data and other documents among the companies involved. Users access the information--which is encoded with the Extensible Markup Language and flows from companies' transaction-processing systems to the Web--through a Web browser.

Signing the deal with Capital Stream, which supplied desktop apps to financing companies under the name System 1 Software before changing its name earlier this year, gave Textron an immediate online presence, says Jim Merilees, VP and division manager. Textron plans to roll out the system only to select customers. "A lot of companies are putting up Web sites and hoping everyone will hit them," he says, rather than maintaining quality.

Textron Financial has also integrated Capital Stream's software with its existing desktop applications. "It's a nice proof of concept to integrate with someone else's software," says Hal Hayden, Capital Stream's manufacturing segment general manager.