[announce] Spherion Technology Uses Hermes with Large Australian Telco

["Dorris Tai" <cwtai@cecid.hku.hk>]

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Spherion Technology Uses Hermes with Large Australian Telco
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Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China – April 15, 2004 - Center for
E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), The University of Hong
Kong (HKU) is pleased to announce that our open source ebXML message
service handler, Hermes, has been deployed in a B2B e-procurement
system by Spherion Technology Solution (STS), a large business and
technology consulting firm in Australia. STS adopted Hermes (based on
ebMS v2) to implement an e-procurement system for a division of
Spherion Asia Pacific, Spherion Education Solutions, and a large
Australian telecommunications company. The system is in production and
Spherion Education Solutions, an education/training service provider,
can now provide reliable and secure training course procurement
service to her telecom client cost-effectively.

When the project started, the telecom client had already adopted a
commercial ebXML messaging gateway product, and Spherion needed a
reliable and interoperable ebXML messaging handler. Hermes’
certification of the Asian ebXML Interoperability Test became an
important selection criterion for STS. At the technology evaluation
stage, STS created a development and testing environment for Hermes at
a considerably low cost compared with those commercial counterparts
available in the market. Throughout the implementation process, Hermes
quality was enhanced by STS and CECID. Also, thanks to the Hermes
developer community, minor problems for the open source product took a
short time to fix.

With the new e-procurement system using ebXML messaging service, the
telecom company exchanges purchase orders, invoices and remittance
advice with Spherion Education Solutions. Besides exploiting the
features of Hermes to achieve reliable electronic document exchange,
the PKI capacity of Hermes is being utilized in this project to
enhance transaction security and provide non-repudiation support of
the messages transacted.

Both STS and the telecom company are satisfied with the ebXML
production environment. The telecom company is now planning to phase
out the existing EDI e-procurement system to the new ebXML-enabled
system to handle all education service procurement. With the surge of
interest in open source software and ebXML technology, STS expects
Hermes to be engaged in more B2B system development projects.

About Spherion (www.spherion.com.au)
Spherion Technology Solution (STS) is part of the Spherion Group,
which was established in Australia in 1968 and later joined the
Spherion Corporation, a global business consultation organization
listed in the New York Stock Exchange. Spherion Group has many years
of business experience with expertise and experience in recruitment,
education and training, technology and outsourcing services. STS
offers its clients services in project management, application
development, technical implementation and technical consulting. Its
reputation is built through developing customized and innovative
technology solutions that are aligned with the clients’ objectives and
business strategies.

About CECID (www.cecid.hku.hk)
Established in January 2002, the Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure
Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong conducts e-commerce
research and development with the vision of helping organizations
increase their competitiveness in the global economy. CECID develops
e-commerce enabling technologies, participates in important
international e-commerce initiatives, supports e-commerce
standardization for Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific Region, and
transfers e-commerce technology and skills to the community. With
projects primarily funded by the Hong Kong Government's Innovation and
Technology Commission, CECID is an active member of OASIS and the
ebXML Asia Committee. The Center also collaborates with a number of
lead technology users in the Asia-Pacific Region on turning R&D
results into real-life business applications. CECID's recent
contributions to the community include its code donation of Hermes and
ebMail to FreebXML (http://www.freebxml.org) and the production of an
in-depth design and management guide on XML Schemas for the Hong Kong
Government.