Author: JT Smith
Today’s announcement builds upon the tighter integration of DB2TM and the WebSphere product family, providing customers with an e-business infrastructure that combines analytic capabilities into an e-commerce transaction system. Software integration enables customers to streamline their business processes, enhance their existing infrastructure and minimize the skills required to support their IT environment.
Building on the strengths of DB2’s advanced business intelligence and data mining capabilities and WebSphere Commerce Suite V5.1, WCA/Advanced provides customers with immediate access to customer buying patterns and purchasing trends, resulting in a greater level of customer service.
For example, a clothing retailer could uncover a trend among college students that have similar buying characteristics. The data could show that this group is buying a particular pair of sneakers, but abandoning shopping carts at a higher frequency. By uncovering this information, the retailer could use WebSphere Commerce Suite to set up a campaign to target students, and provide toll-free numbers to assist customers with shopping carts.
“The packaging of IBM’s DB2 data mining software with Brio’s end user information access software adds value to IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite,” said Henry Morris, Vice President for Applications and Information Access at IDC. “WebSphere Commerce Analyzer Advanced Edition makes sophisticated analytics accessible to a wider audience. This package offers IBM customers an integrated solution upon which companies can build and develop sophisticated e-businesses.”
Because WCA/Advanced is a pre-configured application customers can become operational in a few days, saving businesses time and money, versus competitive offerings which can typically take months to implement. It also supports the needs of evolving e-businesses, including the use of open standards, such as Java ®, SQL enterprise application integration, collaboration and security tools, which are important in providing a common languages to exchange information on the Web.
Lillian Vernon (www.lillianvernon.com), a leading specialty catalog and online retailer, which markets gift, housewares, gardening, kitchen, and children’s products, is currently beta testing WCA/Advanced, which they plan to use to accelerate their Web sales.
“We believe that WCA/Advanced is key to providing valuable information which will give us the opportunity to better target our customers with the products they desire,” said Lillian Vernon, CEO, Lillian Vernon Corporation. “This information will help Lillian Vernon increase our online revenue.”
Business Partners Support
IBM has incorporated Brio.Inform, Brio Technology Inc.’s business performance management application, on top of IBM’s middleware, to provide a user-friendly, browser-based interface to generate customized reports, charts and graphs. IBM DB2 provides the advanced analytic and data mining capabilities that power the reports.
“In teaming with IBM, we are providing an easy-to-use, Web-enabled, front-end query and reporting tool to display the analytics and customer segmentation that is generated by IBM DB2,” stated Craig Brennan, CEO and president of Brio Technology. “Working with IBM, we are delivering a best-of-breed, Web analytics application that uses Brio.Inform to provide customers with an easy-to-use interface, leveraging IBM DB2’s strong analytic capabilities as the engine.”
Availability
WCA/Advanced is available now on Microsoft Windows 2000/NT platforms. European and Asian language editions for Windows 2000/NT will be available on September 4, and support for AIX will be available on September 14.
About IBM Data Management Software
As the foundation for e-business, DB2 data management software is the industry’s first multimedia, Web-ready relational database management system, strong enough to meet the demands of large corporations and flexible enough to serve medium-sized and small e-businesses. DB2 data management software combines integrated power for business intelligence, content management, enterprise information portals and e-business with industry-leading performance and reliability to drive the most demanding industry solutions. DB2 data management software together with Internet technology makes information easily accessible, available and secure. There are more than 60 million DB2 users from over 300,000 companies worldwide relying on IBM data management solutions. Additional information on WCA/Advanced is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/bi/wca.
About WebSphere Commerce Suite
IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite, the first integrated family of e-commerce software, provides multiple easy-to-use features and functions for content management, secure order and payment management, and relationship marketing for all types of Internet businesses. In 2000, WebSphere Commerce Suite posted more than 300% revenue growth, far outpacing the industry growth rate of 145%*. Additional information is available at http://www.ibm.com/software/webservers/commerce.
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Contact:
Peter Tulupman
IBM Software Group
(212) 745-3093; Fax: (212) 745-2034
email: tulupman@us.ibm.com
