October 16, 2000

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Oracle App Keeps Product-Development Teams In Touch

Online system helps companies, contractors, and customers communicate and share plans

By Alorie Gilbert

More on supply chain applications:

J.D. Edwards Unveils Collaborative Supply-Chain Software (10/9/00) TechWeb: RosettaNet Says It Has Passed Milestone (10/10/00) EETimes: Supply chain tool hits Web (10/9/00)

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s manufacturers increasingly rely on contractors to design and build components for their products, they're struggling to keep all their partners on the same page during product development. The newest application in Oracle's online marketplace suite is designed to help solve the problem.

Oracle Product Development Exchange is designed to reduce the cost and time of delivering new products to market. It streamlines communication and decision-making among companies, contractors, customers, and others via trading exchanges.

Available now for $995 per license, the system lets users share access to bills of material, computer-aided design files, product plans, time lines, and Web conferencing. Underlying the application is a document-management system that includes change-notification and version-control features based on Oracle's Internet File System. The new product is one of three components of the Oracle Exchange suite, which also includes online trading and supply-chain collaboration applications.

Online product development is an up-and-coming area. Oracle rivals SAP and i2 Technologies Inc. are considering products, and a new venture was formed last week between Dow Chemical Co. and Andersen Consulting (see story, p. 159).

Ford Motor Co., which is building an online marketplace using Oracle Exchange applications, isn't yet an early adopter. However, the automaker is interested in improving communication with contract manufacturers, according to Kurt Robeson, VP of design and architecture at Oracle. Ford was unavailable for comment.

Analysts say Web-based product development is the logical evolution of business-to-business E-commerce. But before companies put closely guarded product information on the Internet, security and privacy issues must be addressed. Says Tim Clark, an analyst at Net Market Makers, "Every user will want to be convinced of security or they won't use it."

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