i2 Technologies Inc. announced at its Planet 2002 user conference in Las Vegas on Monday an expanded agreement with e2open to provide Web services and integration of i2 software on e2opens network.
e2open, which provides a Global Collaboration Network for the electronics industry, was formed by technology industry leaders Acer Inc., Hitachi Ltd, IBM, LG Electronics Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc., Matsushita Electronics, Nortel Networks Ltd., Seagate Technology Inc., Solectron Corp and Toshiba Corp. in mid-2000.
i2 and e2open will pitch in development resources to ensure that i2 applications operate within the E2open network. i2 will market and sell E2s network offerings.
e2opens network is built on Web services standards like SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), WSDL (Web services definition language) and UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) directory. It offers a platform for transaction routing and multi-company process support as well as a private UDDI directory that allows for loosely coupled integrations.
The alliance is aimed at providing joint customers with a Web services-enabled solution for integrating business partners.
i2s high tech customers will have new integration capabilities to enable them to publish Web services from their internal business applications into the e2open directory.
e2open and i2 have had a relationship since 2000, when e2open began offering network services for some i2 collaboration applications.