OASIS Member News: Arbortext Announces Epic Intermarket

[Beth Ambaruch <bea@arbortext.com>]

Arbortext Announces Launch of Epic Intermarket, an XML Based B2B Commerce
Solution

Epic Intermarket to enable e-businesses to enrich the content and services
available in online catalogs and net marketplaces

ANN ARBOR, Mich., November 13, 2000 -- Arbortext, Inc., a leading provider
of content management integration software and business-to-business commerce
solutions, today announced the availability of Epic Intermarket, a solution
that enables suppliers and net marketplaces to deploy catalog applications
that offer more extensive, more personalized and more usable content.  A
leading marketplace for industrial parts that publishes an online catalog
with millions of parts from thousands of suppliers is among the first
e-businesses to utilize Epic Intermarket for its online marketplace.

Epic Intermarket is a solution built on XML, the new Web language for
e-commerce and a standard that Arbortext helped develop.  Epic Intermarket
helps organizations differentiate themselves from their online competitors
by providing more extensive and more usable content to drive a superior
product selection and customer self-service experience.  An online
marketplace driven by enriched content enables e-marketplaces to create
online catalogs that offer more information than typical line item catalogs,
which allows prospects to find, compare and select products much more easily
than before – improving the product selection experience and attracting more
customers and more purchases to their site.

Epic Intermarket is built upon Arbortext’s pioneering Epic E-Content Engine
(E3), a Web-based system for aggregating, storing, assembling and
distributing enriched content.
	Content aggregation.  Epic Intermarket leverages the power of E3 to gather
content from multiple sources including Word, FrameMaker and Interleaf, and
convert that content into reusable XML components.  E3 also works with
Arbortext’s Epic Editor and Epic Editor LE, both of which enable direct
creation of XML content.
	Content management.  Epic Intermarket integrates with repositories from
Oracle, Documentum and others to enable seamless creation and management of
reusable and intelligent XML information components.
	Content distribution.  Through E3, Epic Intermarket extracts content from
the repository, assembles it according to individual requirements, and
automatically transforms it for any purpose – not only for publishing to the
Web, but also for traditional catalog formats such as print and CD-ROM as
well as newer devices such as PDAs, e-Books and cellular phones. In
addition, Intermarket can syndicate catalog content to multiple
marketplaces, enabling a supplier to drive all of their online business from
a single source repository.

Epic Intermarket supports the e-commerce schema standards from Open
Applications Group, Inc. (OAGI), which means that Intermarket can exchange
catalog content with other business-to-business online marketplace providers
such as Ariba, CommerceOne and Oracle.

“Most B2B marketplaces operate on the premise that information must be
exchanged to facilitate online purchases,” said Kevin Jones, Jupiter Media
Metrix Fellow and Co-Founder of NMM.com.  “Software that collects, creates,
personalizes and shares that information, to allow marketplaces to support
their customers before the sale, during the sale, and long after the sale,
as well as working closely with customers from the moment they become
prospects till they become customers is the future of e-commerce.  Arbortext
has the right approach.”

Working With Oracle Internet File System

Epic Intermarket integrates with Oracle Internet File System from Oracle
Corporation [NASDAQ: ORCL].  Oracle Internet File System provides a single
location to store, manage and search all Internet content including
documents, presentations, PDF files, images, multimedia, Web pages, and XML
files.  Users can access content from different protocols including Windows
(SMB), file transfer (FTP), and the Web (HTTP and WebDAV).  Companies may
customize Oracle Internet File System for specific application purposes
through XML and Java-based SDK that simplifies development and takes
advantage of the built-in features for managing content.  Based on Oracle8i,
it provides the reliability, availability and scalability required by
e-businesses.

"Arbortext has a history of providing solutions to leading companies who
need to leverage the full power of XML for their e-business needs,” said
Jeremy Burton, Oracle senior vice president, products and services
marketing.  “Because Arbortext and Oracle present a flexible and scalable
content management solution with XML at its core, organizations now have the
power to deploy vastly more content in support of an online marketplace that
differentiates them from their competitors.”

“Customers come to Arbortext because we share a vision of e-commerce as far
more than just the Web way to take orders,” said Jim Sterken, Arbortext
president and CEO .  “We see an incredible opportunity to deliver
information and expertise on the Web so that customers have everything they
need to service themselves, both before and after a sale.  That’s what is
called ‘enriched content,’ and it’s changing the way enterprises interact
with their customers, enabling them to attract more customers, transact more
business, and reduce their costs.  Epic Intermarket provides the foundation
for this vision.”

Availability

Epic Intermarket will ship in January 2001.  Epic Intermarket leverages the
power of Epic Editor and the Epic E-Content Engine, both of which are
included in a minimum Intermarket installation.  Epic Intermarket runs on
the Microsoft IIS Web server running on NT Server 4.0/SP5 or later or
Netscape’s iPlanet Web server running on Sun Solaris 7.  Epic Intermarket
works with Oracle 8iFS and Java Runtime Engine 1.1.8 or later.

About Arbortext

Renowned as one of the original creators of XML, Arbortext is the leading
global provider of content management integration software and
business-to-business commerce solutions.  Shipping since 1991, Arbortext’s
standards-based software enables enterprises to provide more personalized
dynamic and easily searchable content for e-publishing, e-commerce and B2B
e-marketplaces. Arbortext’s software is currently deployed at over 300 of
the Global 2000 companies, including AT&T, Audi, Boeing, British Aerospace,
Caterpillar, DaimlerChrysler, Ericsson Telecom, Ford, GM, IBM, Lucent,
Nokia, Qantas, Ricoh, Sun Microsystems, International Thomson Publishing,
United Airlines, Volkswagen, Volvo and West Group. Arbortext is a founding
member and active participant in the XML Activity of the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, Arbortext has
offices around the world.  For more information please visit
http://www.arbortext.com.

# # #

Contact: 	Kevin Astle					PG Bartlett
	  	Text 100					Arbortext, Inc.
	  	+1 617.399.4902				+1 734.327.6819
	 	kevina@text100.com			pgb@arbortext.com