October 30, 2000

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Amazon Taps Excelon To Redo Supply-Chain System

E-retailer Plans private exchange to link most suppliers in real time

By Steve Konicki

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mazon.com Inc. has chosen database and E-business software vendor Excelon Corp. to rebuild its business-to-business supply chain. The E-retailer plans to use a private exchange that links the company to its suppliers for toys, CDs, electronics, and all other products except books, regardless of the suppliers' technical capabilities. Amazon.com didn't reveal whether it will continue to use its proprietary system to manage its relationships with book publishers and suppliers.

The Excelon system will let Amazon.com and its suppliers communicate in real time on orders and shipments. In addition, Amazon.com's largest suppliers will be able to manage their inventories within the Amazon.com site through direct connections with the e-retailer's enterprise resource planning and database applications, says Larry Alston, Excelon's chief technical officer. Excelon's products can be used by technically sophisticated suppliers as well as by suppliers with nothing more than a Windows PC and an Internet connection, Alston says.

Excelon's B2B Integration Server will define how suppliers do real-time business with Amazon.com, as well as integrate the E-retailer's systems with those already employed by individual suppliers. Amazon.com will use Excelon's B2B Portal Server to build a product catalog for use with wireless devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants. Initially, this capability will be used for specialty items that appeal to wireless shoppers, Alston says.

Amazon.com also will implement Excelon's ObjectStore database product to cache data objects that make up Amazon.com's pages. Currently, Alston says, Amazon.com caches entire pages, not data objects, in an Oracle database. ObjectStore caches business information such as inventory levels, which allows real-time checking of orders against inventory.

Meta Group VP Hollis Bischoff says Amazon.com is rebuilding its internal supply-chain operation, which is based on proprietary software. Amazon.com, like other early Internet businesses, originally had little choice but to build its own software. But numerous software vendors now offer packages that are more advanced than Amazon.com's.

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