Renee Boucher Ferguson

Seebeyond technology corp. and CommerceFlow Inc. are each taking a stab at providing quick-integration tools for suppliers looking to link to multiple business-to-business channels. SeeBeyond this week will introduce Version 4.5 of its eBusiness Suite, which adds support for Java2 Enterprise Edition to its integration software. This support enables customers to invoke Enterprise Java- Beans […]

The new project resource management application from Oracle Corp. provides software designed to help companies better manage their human capital. The PJRM application, which began shipping late last month, enables organizations to manage staffing, scheduling and rates for mobile workforce groups such as consultants. The application also performs matches against a skills database to find […]

Large public marketplaces, once the domain of online business-to-business transactions, are being supplanted by smaller, private exchanges that put single businesses at the hub of their own B2B world. Such private trading networks, as they are called, offer increased collaboration with suppliers and a deeper view into the supply chain and as such are poised […]

Consumers have long had an option to pay bills online. Developers have also produced software for presenting and paying business-to-business bills online, but uptake has been slow. Now software developers such as Princeton eCom Corp., Metavante Corp. and Direct Insite Corp. are stressing integration and analysis capabilities of their EBPP (electronic bill presentment and payment) […]

PeopleSoft Inc. will move deeper into the business-to-business and data analysis territories this week with an upgraded supplier relationship management suite. Version 5.21 of its SRM suite, due this week, is expected to enhance supplier collaboration by enabling corporations to manage relationships all along the supply chain, from design and sourcing through planning and procurement, […]

WebMethods Inc. is readying a new version of its business process management middleware that links applications and transactions not simply across the enterprise but across business-to-business networks, as well. The extension of the WebMethods Integration Platform, which the Sunnyvale, Calif., company will introduce next month, ties existing enterprise applications and extends them to databases, data […]

Lawson Software Inc. is ready to push into vertical services but faces competition there from larger ERP developers such as PeopleSoft Inc. At its Conference and User Exchange here this month, enterprise resource planning software maker Lawson introduced an upgrade to its flagship Lawson.insight suite that includes enhancements for operating, managing, tracking and understanding services-related […]

Metaserver Inc. and Versata Inc. have upgraded their respective BPI software to enable companies to tie together their internal and external systems. The goal of the business process integration software is to give enterprises the ability to gather information from a variety of operational systems, pull it together and present it back to those systems […]

As companies like i2 Technologies Inc. step up partnering efforts to bolster their supply chain software, some IT managers are looking, instead, to their ERP providers for similar capabilities. Thats because, according to IT managers, buying supply chain applications as a module for their enterprise resource planning suite is proving to reduce integration costs. Nevertheless, […]

PeopleSoft Inc. bolstered its long-held supremacy in human resources automation software with the acquisition of SkillsVillage Inc. last week. The addition of SkillsVillages functionality of locating and hiring services and contingent staff gives PeopleSoft and its namesake ERP (enterprise resource planning) software suite a fairly complete system for sourcing, administering and managing enterprise human resources […]

Two of the leading business-to-business software providers will look quite different once the CEOs that each introduced last week make their marks. While new Ariba Inc. CEO Larry Mueller expects to take his company back to basics with a heightened focus on improving e-procurement applications, i2 Technologies Inc. CEO Greg Brady plans to extend his […]

Commerce One Inc. last week rolled out products that it jointly developed with big-name partners Microsoft Corp., SAPMarkets Inc. and Citibank in an effort to make e-marketplace software standard equipment in IT shops. While users welcomed the new tools, some said Commerce One and other business-to-business software developers need to do a better job of […]