Gaithersburg, MD — May 14, 2003 — Global eXchange Services (GXS) this week announced that its Global Product Catalogue (GPC), a multi-industry data repository of product attributes and synchronization service, is the first service of its scope to be certified for UCCnet Foundation Services 2.1.
According to the e-commerce network, UCCnet's GLOBALregistry provides a global product directory through which independent data repositories interface to achieve data synchronization for global, multi-industry supply chain partners. GXS said the inter-operability certification enables catalog clients to extend their data synchronization needs by having GXS promote needed information to UCCnet while continuing to provide a centralized database for multiple users to access in a variety of ways (Web, EDI, XML, Batch or real-time).
"For years we've relied on GXS to help us meet the demands of our retail partners," said Ron Cochran, director Supply Chain Systems, Newell/Rubbermaid. "This announcement is positive for the retail industry with GXS undertaking a leadership initiative, adopting industry standards to comply with UCCnet. We believe GXS is doing the right thing for the good of the consumer products industry."
According to GXS, GPC certification provides subscribers with UCCnet capabilities to register products with UCCnet's GLOBALregistry, ensure product and attribute compliance with standardized UCCnet validations and business rules, publish products to specific UCCnet retailers,; handle bi-directional XML Internet messaging and reporting, send and receive UCCnet and other product attributes using X12 and EDIFACT, and support all UCCnet-defined attributes per product.
"In addition to the GPC certification, GXS has also received certification for its AS2 transport services and plans to certify its Enterprise and Application Integrator offerings," stated Jim Rogers, vice president of Integration Solutions, GXS.
Within its hosted service environment, GPC operates active data synchronization communities in three countries — U.S. Retail, ECCnet (Canada), and EANnet (Australia). GPC provides features to "community owners" like ECCC and EAN Australia, enabling them to provide their member companies with additional value-added services.
"GXS' Global Product Catalogue powers ECCnet, Canada's National Product Registry. The GXS and ECCnet partnership has been helping to drive country-wide standards-based data synchronization in every retail sector for over four years," said Art Smith, president of the Electronic Commerce Council of Canada (ECCC). "GPC already allows cross-community data synchronization between its U.S. and Canadian communities, eliminating the need for suppliers to subscribe to multiple catalogue services for each country in which they do business."
