Fujitsu brings private web exchanges instantaneous multi-language, currency and system support

Glovia, Fujitsu’s enterprise software (ERP) division is serious about e-business: the firm is currently beta testing a private web marketplace platform and says it will be n general release in September. Dubbed glovia.hub, it’s the culmination of recent e-business enhancement from the firm designed to link market-makers, suppliers and customers regardless of language, currency or installed backend legacy applications. The firm says glovia.hub will succeed because it combines the three essential elements for private collaborative web exchanges – an integrated back office suite (ERP), multi-language e-commerce covering buy and sell-side technology, and secure, operating system independent message routing – in its case, impressive Interstage technology from Fujitsu. For companies wanting to transact business digitally and globally in the real world of multiple hybrid systems, languages, currencies and the rest, this is a powerful answer. Glovia points out that to date, the language of commerce has defaulted to English. With glovia.hub’s real time translation technology, orders can be entered in one language and seen in any other by any other. Says Matt O’Malley, Glovia’s CEO and president: “We designed glovia.hub to address the needs of Fortune 1000 companies who desire the productivity gains of streamlining and collapsing the buy and sell business processes into collaborative business processes with customers and suppliers… A major strength of the technology is the speed of implementation that can start to yield a return on investment within 6 months.” Beyond this you’re into the usual aggregating of sales and demand, merging products and services as one apparent offering, and generating quotations that involve multi-factory/site collaboration. “Enterprises realise that conducting meaningful B2B [business-to-business] commerce involves far more than just posting a catalogue and taking orders from your domestic customers,” comments William Brandel, research director of e-business at analyst Aberdeen Group. “Trading partners are often scattered across the globe, and need strong purchase planning and post-order support.”