Sun-Netscape Alliance's New Internet Billing Consolidation Application to Help Make Internet Billing a Reality for Consumers
Advanced Software Platform Addresses Internet Payment Goals of Spectrum
Consortium With Three of the Nation's Largest Banks
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sun-Netscape Alliance (Alliance) today introduced an Internet bill presentment and payment solution that will help make electronic billing a reality for every household in America. Leveraging iPlanet(TM) BillerXpert Consolidator Edition software, organizations such as banks across the country will, for the first time, be able to offer a seamless electronic bill presentment and payment system so that consumers only have to use one source to pay all of their bills.
Industry experts believe that a common standard for Internet bill presentment and payment will help drive the mass adoption of electronic billing by encouraging multiple billers, such as credit card companies, retailers and utilities, to present bills via the banks' Web sites. As a result, more consumers will take advantage of the opportunity to pay all of their bills with just the click of the mouse. Three of the nation's top 10 banks -- Chase Manhattan, First Union and Wells Fargo -- have formed a consortium known as Spectrum to adopt a common approach to Internet bill presentment and payment. Already in use by First Union, the Alliance's new iPlanet BillerXpert Consolidator Edition is one of the first software products to support the Spectrum standard.
In addition to Spectrum, the Alliance's Internet bill presentment and payment offering leverages industry-standard platform technologies, such as Java, and relationships with leaders in the electronic billing market including America Online (NYSE: AOL) and Intuit. "Intuit recognizes the Sun-Netscape Alliance as a preferred provider of industry-leading enterprise applications," said Eric Dunn, chief technology officer at Intuit. "As we continue to enable billing service providers, we encourage these companies to further strengthen their bill presentment and payment platforms with solutions from premier software providers like the Sun-Netscape Alliance."
As part of its strategy to support leading industry standards and provide a scalable application infrastructure, the Alliance's Internet bill presentment and payment solutions will support Java(TM) 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition. Because it is built on the Alliance application server and Java technology, iPlanet BillerXpert Consolidator Edition users can get their electronic billing solution up and running in days, scale to meet the demand of their customers and benefit from a Java-enabled environment for application development.
iPlanet BillerXpert Consolidator Edition can provide dramatic benefits for the bank, the biller and the consumer. First, it enables the banks to present its corporate customer's bills via the Web. Next, the consumer can log onto their online banking site to view a summary of bills from their service providers, such as the telephone company, and choose to simply pay the bill or be linked to the provider for detailed information about that bill. The billers benefit because they can reach customers more than just once a month, and can leverage the bank's increased site traffic to attract more customers.
Currently, banks offer their consumers the ability to pay only a few of their bills online. Some provide payment to the biller with an arduous "check and list" method, so the biller gets one lump check with a list of paying customers, requiring the biller to cross reference whom has paid and contributed to the large sum.
"The Sun-Netscape Alliance's Internet billing application enables us to continue our goal of providing cutting-edge technological solutions that make it easier for our customers to do business," said Nina R. Archer, executive vice president and Global Cash Management Division head at First Union. "This innovative solution has helped make electronic bill presentment and payment a simple reality for billers and their customers."
The Alliance's Internet bill presentment and payment offering is one of the first end-to-end Spectrum compatible solutions available to the industry. iPlanet BillerXpert Consolidator Edition leverages Spectrum to enable the banks to accept a customer's payment and distribute it to the biller via Spectrum's secure infrastructure. Billers also can use Spectrum as a secure medium to send detailed information about the customer's account to the bank's site. This process is seamless to the consumer, who simply logs on to their banking site and has detailed personalized information available at their fingertips.
Spectrum provides the secure medium to streamline the presentment of bills between billers and their customers and functions as a hub, allowing members to route electronic bills through a single connection to other participating vendors.
"BillerXpert and BillerXpert Consolidator Edition provide a dynamic Internet billing solution that covers all the bases for our customers," said James Shuder, senior director of customer relationship solutions for the Sun-Netscape Alliance. "The Alliance has simplified the Internet bill presentment and payment cycle so dramatically that consumers will never want to lick another stamp again to pay a bill."
About the Sun-Netscape Alliance
America Online, Inc. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. formed the Sun-Netscape Alliance to provide easy to deploy, comprehensive enterprise and e-commerce solutions and services to business partners and other companies competing in today's Net Economy. The Alliance product portfolio provides customers with the industry's most scalable, integrated infrastructure software and a family of production ready e-commerce applications. The products are offered on the industry's most widely available product platforms, including DEC, HP, IBM, Linux, SGI, Microsoft Windows, and Sun. The alliance software product portfolio includes: messaging and calendar, collaboration, web, application, directory, and certificate servers. The Alliance also offers a family of production-ready applications for e-commerce, including commerce exchange, procurement, selling, and billing.
About America Online, Inc.
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 18 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately two million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, The Network is The Computer(TM), has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $11 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at sun.com.
NOTE: Netscape and the Netscape N logo are registered trademarks in the United States and other countries of Netscape Communications, a subsidiary of America Online, Inc. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Java, iPlanet and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
SOURCE Sun-Netscape Alliance Corporation
CO: Sun-Netscape Alliance; America Online, Inc.; Sun Microsystems, Inc.
ST: California, Virginia
IN: MLM FIN
SU: PDT
12/06/1999 12:13 EST prnewswire.com |
