April 2001

Collaborative commerce is at the heart of a drive by ERP giant JD Edwards to extend its presence further into the supply-chain market. It is clearly keen to accelerate a shift in market perception of ERP systems, and persuade users that these can have an external rather than internal focus.

The company points out that its established OneWorld software suite already provides interoperability with other systems via media such as EDI and middleware. However, the new OneWorld Xe implementation ramps up this external emphasis significantly. It draws on what JDE is calling eXtended Process Integration (XPI), which uses XML-based integration technologies acquired last year from Active Software and Netfish.

On this base, JDE says it is developing a range of 300 component-based, Internet-enabled applications covering the whole gamut of supply chain functionality, including planning, procurement, fulfilment, CRM, project management and human resource management.

 

Highlights include new storefront options using Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition and IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite; self-service applications (which can be personalised by users); and knowledge management.