Users Forced To Build Apps

By TOM SMITH
Monday, October 25, 1999

"As more software companies are becoming Internet-centric in their product offerings, the percentage of times we build is going down and the percentage of times we buy is going up," says Pete Solvik, CIO of Cisco Systems, which handles more than 80 percent of customer support inquiries electronically. "But too often, we still have to build."

Likewise, Dell Computer has done mostly custom development for online customer service, with the exception of its automated e-mail response and bulletin board applications, says Manish Mehta, senior manager of online support. (Dell won't disclose the product vendors.)

Dell estimates that 40 percent of its customers go online for support and service. "What we end up doing almost 75 percent of the time is building, because it's so hard to take off-the-shelf technology and integrate it into an existing environment," Mehta says.

United Parcel Service takes internal development a step further, having invested in more than 20 technology companies whose products can further its customer service goals, says Dale Hayes, vice president of e-commerce and technology marketing. Most recently, the company invested $4 million in Tumbleweed Communications Corp., whose secure document delivery software underpins UPS's Document Exchange e-commerce service.

Among its other investments: Moai Technologies, a developer of auction software; TanData Corp., a developer of multicarrier logistics software; and NET Delivery Corp., a developer of software for consolidating information from multiple senders and delivering customized information to multiple recipients.