San Jose, CA October 17, 2001 SAQQARA, a provider of product content management software and services, is rolling up its product line into a single solution that will allow suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and e-marketplaces to author, publish and analyze product-related content, the software company announced this week.
SAQQARA's CommerceSuite 4.0, available now, will come in three flavors: regular, basic and plus.
- CommerceSuite Basic is an entry-level package that provides the functionalities in the software company's ProductServer and PIXServer applications.
- CommerceSuite (the regular version) includes all features previously available in ProductServer, AnalysisServer, PIXServer and StorefrontServer, plus several enhancements.
- CommerceSuite Plus provides all the features in the regular CommerceSuite, plus the guided product selling capabilities only previously available with SAQQARA's SolutionServer.
"Our decision to consolidate all content management solutions into one SAQQARA CommerceSuite solution was based on a need to provide tighter integration of content management processes, superior performance and better price points that enable our customers to take full advantage of SAQQARA's enterprise-wide content management capabilities," said company president and chief operating officer Brad Albright.
With the release of CommerceSuite 4.0, SAQQARA will no longer offer the individual ProductServer, StorefrontServer, PIXServer, SolutionServer and AnalysisServer products. Current customers under maintenance contracts with SAQQARA ProductServer products will be offered CommerceSuite 4.0 upgrade pricing.
SAQQARA says CommerceSuite 4.0's improved Web-based user interface supports collaborative content authoring and publishing in a global enterprise environment to combat escalating content management needs where product content is massive in quantity and constantly changing. Suppliers can use the solution to deliver product content within these environments to customers and channel partners.
With CommerceSuite 4.0, administrators may define content management workflows to allow globally located product content managers to jointly participate in catalog authoring, maintenance and publishing by following their prescribed management processes for content updates and catalog publishing. A content controller allows for synchronized catalog content updates across multiple servers and content sources.
CommerceSuite 4.0 also includes:
- Online Web storefront to support buyer registration and authentication, persistent shopping cart maintenance.
- Personalized catalog views with tailored content and pricing based on customer profiles and buyer requirements.
- Shopping cart information easily integrated with supplier order management systems to track buyer demand and speed product delivery.
- Punchout and RoundTrip support enables buyers to use existing e-procurement applications to source and procure product according to their business processes.
- Multi-language capabilities deliver content in the preferred language of the buyer.
- Analysis tool to monitor and analyze product content browsing to increase product availability and sales while managing inventories.
SAQQARA says that CommerceSuite 4.0 employs operating system-neutral SOAP and XML technologies, allowing catalogs to be offered as ready-to-use web services to dynamically link with enterprise applications across the Internet, facilitating access to and use of catalog information by worldwide manufacturers and distributors.
Dave Holden, manager of e-commerce applications and services at Eastman Chemical Co., said: "SAQQARA ... has enabled Eastman to create, manage and deploy product differentiating catalogs that will meet the language and distribution channel needs of international customers. Content and customer management is complex, and SAQQARA CommerceSuite eloquently addresses that complexity."
Adds Dan Poirier, vice president of sales and marketing for SAQQARA, "Success for suppliers and buyers hinges on the timely delivery of comprehensive, accurate, and differentiating product information in a format that meets the unique needs of each customer and distribution partner. With CommerceSuite 4.0, SAQQARA has made a significant investment in addressing these success factors."
