RosettaNet Plots Official Launch

Menlo Park, Calif. -- RosettaNet, the massive PC industry effort to standardize e-business processes, today formally moved into its pilot stage with a launch event here.

The group, made up of literally all the major PC industry players, said that 30 companies have committed to make use of the RosettaNet standards by February 2, 2000, a day the group called eConcert Readiness Day.

The standards effort, spearheaded by group leader and Ingram Micro executive Fadi Chehade, defined so-called partner interface processes, or PIPs, between member companies. The PIPs define how transactions are conducted up and down the IT supply chain, including between manufacturers, software publishers, distributors, resellers, integrators and end users.

For the pilot phase of eConcert, RosettaNet has developed nine PIPs relating to catalog updates and purchasing processes. The first three PIP pilots are scheduled for June 25, with five more partner link-ups slated for August. By next February, all the 30 eConcert companies will be in full production mode.

RosettaNet has also released a dictionary of common, unified e-business language standards--built using the Extensible Markup Language--that serve as the foundation for the individual partner interfaces.

Such standard product and process definitions are crucial if today's fledgling industry business practices such as vendor- and distributor-managed inventory and build-to-order are to become truly viable. The RosettaNet standards will enable the flow of information necessary to make those business models a reality.

Users, meanwhile, will gain better electronic purchasing, as well as a true audit trail that traces an order up and down the supply chain.

RosettaNet's Chehade estimates that one PIP can yield annual savings as high as $1 million for each implementer. In total, the IT supply chain could save as much as $25 billion annually when all PIPs are implemented, he predicted.

Among the companies committing to the implementation phase are 3Com, Federal Express, Sterling Commerce, GE Information Services, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Netscape, pcOrder, Ingram Micro, SAP, CompUSA and Intel.