Thread - Interesting article on a company called PCorder. It provides ordering software and has Ross Cooley as one of it's leaders. Rudedog - are you familiar with them?
PcOrder Has Some Savvy Software
For Confused Computer Customers
By EVAN RAMSTAD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
AUSTIN, Texas -- Another company that sells stuff over the Internet is
beginning the process of going public. But you can't buy anything directly
through pcOrder.com, or check it out yourself.
Like its parent company, Trilogy Software Inc., pcOrder.com works
behind the scenes, providing a system that lets buyers order exactly what
they want from distributors and similarly helps distributors buy from
manufacturers.
PcOrder sells software that tries to
resolve one of the thornier issues in selling
computers over the Internet. While a
customer buying from Dell Computer
Corp. considers only one line of products,
a business buying computers through a
reseller may want look at machines from a
number of makers, like Compaq
Computer Corp., International Business
Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard
Co.
On the flip side, the computer manufacturers must deal with thousands of
middlemen, from large corporate distributors like MicroAge Inc. to
mom-and-pop resellers that place computers in doctors' offices. Throw in
a raft of different models and prices and you have enough permutations to
bust your calculator.
"People put their toe in the water and saw this isn't a pool, it's an ocean,"
Christy Jones, the company's 28-year-old founder and president, said in
an interview last month.
Ms. Jones, who was also a founder of Trilogy, a much-larger Austin
company specializing in sales-automation and marketing software, initially
wanted to create a company that sold personal computers over the
Internet. But PC makers didn't want another distributor.
Instead, with Trilogy's financial support, she set up pcOrder in 1996 to
handle the connections between PC buyers and sellers and attracted one
of the industry's top marketers, Compaq's Ross Cooley, to be chairman
and chief executive officer. Ms. Jones and Mr. Cooley, who agreed to a
$1 annual salary plus stock options, are both large stockholders.
The company recently declined interviews, saying it expects to make its
first filing for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange
Commission soon. With an offering, it hopes to recoup Trilogy's
investment through the sizzling market for Internet stocks.
While pcOrder wouldn't disclose financial information, analysts estimate
the company's revenue to be in the tens of millions of dollars; the company
isn't profitable.
Small resellers that didn't have the resources to develop their own
electronic-commerce programs were pcOrder's first customers. Large
manufacturers, including Compaq, expected to develop their own
programs for Web-based sales, but they ended up turning to pcOrder
after their distributors did.
"As we looked at our customer set, about 50% of our [distribution]
channel was using pcOrder software," said Ray Robidaux, vice president
for business planning and operations in Compaq's North America unit. In
addition to software that works together, manufacturers can get a clearer
view of demand for factory planning. PcOrder also extended its programs
to handle sales promotions and leasing, areas the manufacturers weren't
approaching with their own sales software.
The company's biggest challenges are finding enough people to run
sufficient customer support and helping the PC makers and distributors
compete with Dell, which has grabbed market share with its direct-selling
method. PcOrder now employs 170 but has been straining since last fall,
when a group of programmers was pulled off a nearly finished product to
help support new customers. They haven't been able to return to it.
PcOrder is offering $5,000 to anyone in Texas who refers a technical
worker who is subsequently hired.
Dell is just as formidable a problem. In a recent training game played with
some new recruits at Trilogy, Ms. Jones divided the new employees into
small teams to represent companies in the PC industry. Manufacturers had
to build inventories based on forecasts. Distributors and service firms
handled orders and customers could ask for whatever they wanted.
For a few hours, chaos reigned as "customers" begged for PCs they
couldn't get and "distributors" discounted products no one wanted. Three
hours into the game, Ms. Jones changed the rules and turned one of the
manufacturers into Dell. Immediately, the customers rushed to buy exactly
what they wanted straight from Dell.
While Dell sells millions of dollars of computers a day over its Web site,
electronic ordering is still fairly rare for most distributors. But CompuCom
Systems Inc., a large Dallas distributor, gives its 700 customers a custom
Web address where they can search, configure, price and order PCs,
components and mass-market software.
The site uses pcOrder's configuration program, which lets a CompuCom
customer enter a precise specification for a PC -- chip speed, memory,
hard-drive sizes and accessories -- and see the differences between IBM
and H-P PCs that meet it.
"If it brings up three PCs that meet the specifications, perhaps one of them
will turn out to have more expansion room for memory chips and that may
influence the buyer," said Jack Dowling, CompuCom's chief information
officer.
Mr. Dowling said CompuCom is still measuring benefits from the system,
but he believes the company has reduced the time employees spend
configuring orders for customers. Customers also have better information
about parts compatibility and orders are more accurate. "Self service is the
best service," he says.
John |
