InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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October 23, 2000 |
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E-Commerce Platforms
E-Commerce Platforms Mature
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Other vendors are still working through their personalization strategies. Most of these other vendors' products require heavy customization or the use of third-party personalization tools. Some vendors have taken steps to incorporate such tools into their offerings. For example, the E-commerce platforms from IBM and Intershop now include software from Blaze Software and Open Sesame.
It's one thing to support transactions over the Internet--but it's quite another to tie deeply into existing back-end systems and line-of-business applications to enable the commerce platform to be a part of one's overall technology infrastructure. Increasingly, however, this is what customers will require.
There are a number of ways in which commerce platforms address back-end integration. One approach is to leverage an application server infrastructure to facilitate integration. An application server provides state and session management of Web transactions and includes middleware for integrating disparate applications. Every commerce platform in this roundup comes packaged with its own application server or a server from original equipment manufacturer partners such as BEA Systems Inc.
Another way to achieve enterprise integration between the Web site and business applications is for the platform vendors to provide an open, standards-based architecture based on an object model such as COM+, Corba, or Enterprise JavaBeans and Java 2 Enterprise Edition. None of the products we evaluated is J2EE-compliant now, but many are based on open architectures and future support is anticipated.
For example, Intershop's platform sits on an Enterprise JavaBeans-based application server, and Art Technology Group and Blue Martini also offer products based on Java. More mature products based on C++, such as those from BroadVision and IBM, will have to evolve significantly in order to fully support Java and become compliant with Java 2 Enterprise Edition.
Finally, you can look for systems that offer packaged integration with enterprise application integration or middleware components, or with systems such as specific ERP and customer-relationship management packages.
InterWorld and Open Market are impressive in their enterprise application integration capabilities. Both include webMethods' Enterprise integration technology and adapters out of the box.
Of course, users can always rely on integrators or professional services groups to handle the integration. If this is your strategy, consider the offerings from Art Technology Group, BroadVision, IBM, and Microsoft. These vendors either have large professional services divisions or partnerships with major integration houses to perform the integration work.
Most E-commerce platforms historically have focused on helping suppliers sell directly to consumers. But today, many businesses are facing the challenges of also tying in to distributors and E-marketplaces that will give them additional channels for reaching customers and boosting revenue.
Marketplaces require the syndication of product catalogs and in some cases applications among multiple suppliers and resellers.
For commerce platform vendors, one great way to facilitate supplier connections with the marketplace is to partner with the leading marketplace software vendors such as Ariba Inc. and Commerce One Inc. A few of the vendors in our study have already formed such relationships--including BroadVision and Intershop with Commerce One, Blue Martini with Ariba, and IBM with Ariba and i2 Technologies.
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Illustration by James Yang
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