Infrastructure solutions company Axway, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., announced a business-to-business integration (B2Bi) solution, B2Bi Express, specifically geared to small to medium-size businesses (SMBs). The company said the offering, which is available as on-premise licensed software or as software as a service (SAAS), is a scalable solution that empowers companies to manage information flows with customers and trading partners in real time.

Some of the major features of B2Bi Express include trading partner and community management, secure B2B communications with support for standard messaging and business protocols, and electronic data interchange (EDI) support and document handling.
"Axway B2Bi Express is a solution companies can use to extend their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and processes to their trading partners," said Axway’s director of solutions marketing Ulf Persson. "We look at Axway B2Bi Express as completing the ‘last mile’ of integration for the SME space. The solution will help companies fulfill their integration goals, and be able to communicate securely and easily with anyone."

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Based on Axway’s Synchrony technology and service-oriented architecture (SOA), the solution supports a range of message protocols and standards in order to foster communication between midmarket companies and their trading partners. B2Bi Express also contains a community management solution with a small footprint, which can be used as a plug-and-play tool or customized.

B2Bi Express allows SMBs to tackle business-to-business integration, managed file transfer, secure email, business activity monitoring, enterprise application integration, service-oriented architecture, business process management and track and trace and identity validation solutions, with the option to explore cloud computing—a trend one recent report from Forrester Research suggests SMBs will be exploring in 2009.

Axway said the more global their reach, the more SMBs face the complex issue of communicating with large numbers of customers, partners and banks across different systems. Requiring various messaging capabilities may further complicate these communications efforts. The challenge of handling EDI within and outside the business easily and quickly is compounded by a lack of visibility and central management capability. In addition, the company says SMBs with broader partner integration initiatives can be limited by their own systems, unable to implement solutions made for large enterprises.

By enhancing end-to-end visibility of supply chains by monitoring all exchanges and providing real-time alerts when problems arise, Axway hopes B2Bi Express can decrease the need for support and management of data exchanges through mapping and Web-based management tools, as well as improving IT agility and adaptability.

The solution is offered through Axway, which recently merged with Tumbleweed Communications, and will also be resold by Lawson Software, a global provider of enterprise software systems. "We are pleased to be partnering with Axway to deliver B2Bi Express to our clients as part of their EDI initiatives," said Lawson’s global director of product management Ole Rasmussen. "The product provides the versatility, partner management, mapping capabilities, and end-to-end visibility to help our customers succeed."