Open Market Announces Strategic Alliance With Deloitte Consulting
New Alliance Reinforces Open Market's Focus on Solutions for the Enterprise
BURLINGTON, Mass., March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Market, Inc. (Nasdaq: OMKT - news), a leading provider of Internet commerce and information publishing software, and Deloitte Consulting, a leading systems integrator and professional services firm, today announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance to offer Internet commerce solutions to global 1,000 companies. Deloitte Consulting will work with Open Market as an e-commerce technology vendor for the Customer Relationship Management practice, a focused initiative designed to transform an organization's marketing, service, sales and support functions.
As many global 1,000 firms finish implementing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, they face the challenge of how to integrate and streamline their customer-facing business processes. Deloitte Consulting and Open Market will work together to answer this challenge by delivering Internet commerce solutions to the industrial business-to-business marketplace, helping users of major ERP applications deploy Internet commerce catalogs rich in merchandising and customer service features. And, as previously demonstrated at SAP Sapphire '98, Deloitte Consulting and Open Market will also continue to pioneer new ways to extend the enterprise with the development of middle-ware tools to connect Open Market's Internet commerce applications with SAP R/3.
Finally, to reduce client IT project risk, maximize return on investment, and extend the life of Internet facing applications, Deloitte Consulting has identified a team of e-commerce practitioners specializing in Open Market applications to develop rapid implementation methodologies to help customers develop their enterprise Internet commerce strategies. The two companies will work together to develop industry-specific solutions that incorporate Open Market applications into Deloitte Consulting's global network of Solution Centers. These centers provide a forum for clients to simulate business situations across multiple industries, helping them find solutions to better reach their customers and enhance their revenue growth.
''We believe global firms require Internet solutions that embrace all of their business entities, market channels, and legacy enterprise systems,'' said Bo Manning, principal, Deloitte Consulting. ''With Open Market and Deloitte Consulting's combined solutions and methodologies, global 1,000 firms can bridge formerly incompatible ERP and legacy infrastructures to accommodate cross-divisional customer purchase and customer service activities. This functionality will deliver lasting results for our clients.''
''By developing strategic relationships with professional services firms like Deloitte Consulting, Open Market continues to reinforce its position as a leading Internet commerce application provider for the enterprise,'' said Gary Eichhorn, president and CEO of Open Market, Inc. ''Deloitte Consulting has an impressive level of investment, experience and talented resources dedicated to ERP and Internet commerce. I'm confident that our combined solutions will help multi-national companies, with multiple divisions and many classes of customers, embrace business on the Internet.''
About Deloitte Consulting
Deloitte Consulting is one of the world's top management consulting firms, providing services to transform your entire enterprise -- your strategy, processes, information technology, and people.
Deloitte offers its clients a very different approach, with a highly respectful, flexible, and collaborative working style giving an unmatched ability to transfer knowledge and skills and generate employee buy-in. In addition, Deloitte focuses on the realization that changing business processes is necessary to achieve the promised returns from strategy and technology. Their approach enables Deloitte to deliver very different results that clients can count on because trusting their performance improvements will not unravel once the consultants leave, results they can build on because these improvements make their organization more robust and adaptable to future shifts in the environment.
Deloitte Consulting is an integral part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a global leader in professional services, offering consulting, audit, tax, and related services to clients worldwide. More information about Deloitte Consulting is available on the World Wide Web at dc.com.
More About Open Market
Founded in 1994, Open Market, Inc. (Nasdaq: OMKT - news) is the market-share leader in Internet commerce software. Open Market's high-performance application software products and professional services allow its customers to engage in business-to-consumer and business-to-business Internet commerce, information commerce, and commercial publishing. Among Open Market's distinguished roster of global customers include many of the most popular domains on the Web, including Lycos.com, AOL.com, Time Warner's Pathfinder.com, and buydirect.com, major industrials such as Ingram Micro, Milacron, and Acer, more than 700 publishers using Folio Products, including the top 10 commercial publishers, and 10 of world's top 13 national telephone companies. The company, headquartered in Burlington,
Massachusetts, with offices in Japan, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Australia can be reached by calling 1.888.OPEN.MKT or by visiting openmarket.com.
This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are the company's limited operating history, delays in product development, development of the Internet market, changes in product pricing policies, competitive pressures, and the risk factors detailed from time to time in the company's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Open Market and We ARE Internet Commerce are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Market, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE: Open Market, Inc. |
