Stockholm, Sweden and Schaumburg, IL, USA – Intentia International AB (publ.) (XSSE; INT B) announces that the company has developed the first 'real-time' on-demand technology platform, which it calls "Movex Edge." Based on Internet standards, Movex Edge enables a company to integrate its IT systems with suppliers and customers within 30 minutes and share business applications as Web Services, regardless of the type of system or device on which the information is held.
The new on-demand technology platform is key to the collaborative enterprise solution leader realizing its vision of the collaborative supply chain (or 'value chain,' as it is becoming known). Intentia believes that competition is no longer between individual companies, but between value chains that aim to deliver products and services more cost effectively and profitably. This requires an operating environment in which the partners act together as a single, unified entity, with transactions passing seamlessly between them.
Movex Edge avoids the high integration costs and long time-scales normally associated with creating collaborative supply chains. Movex Edge creates an 'on-demand' commercial environment where the technology senses and responds in real time to fluctuating market conditions. As a result, all transactional processes between a company and its suppliers and customers are automated.
Creating A Plug-and-Play Environment
Intentia's Movex Edge can also save millions of dollars on technology cost of ownership because a company no longer has to purchase and maintain a full range of business applications. Instead, applications and functionality are 'borrowed' from partners and combined with its own to run shared supply chain business processes.
"For users in a Movex Edge environment, it's like plugging into the electricity socket on the wall to get instant application power," said Lars Wettergren, director of the Movex platform. "Regardless of system type, Movex Edge creates a 'plug-and-play' collaborative business community where any type of information from any source – computers, PDAs, cell phones, laptops – or pervasive devices are 'subscribed' to at low cost, within minutes.
"This information is 'mixed and matched' with any company's enterprise and supply chain functionality. It's then 'published' as a new Web Service application for use by the whole supply chain community for collaborative business planning and transactions between partners."
Wettergren explains that Movex Edge moves companies into an on-demand world. "Movex Edge enables companies to provide products and services to customers in real time," he says. "It provides accurate, real time data to enable decision-makers to make faster and timelier collaborative decisions. Also, because the supply chain operates as a single entity it is able to reduce costs significantly, shorten lead times and deliver real time service levels."
He adds that within this real-time business environment, change is easy and inexpensive. Supply chain partners are quickly 'disconnected' or 'connected' as market needs change. When a new relationship is formed, new applications are created within minutes and published as a Web Service for as long as required, with no impact on the core applications within the enterprise system.
Wettergren notes that Intentia has been able to develop Movex Edge because the company remains at the forefront of adopting the new emerging standards such as those developed by IBM, Microsoft and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and XML and Java.
He adds that Movex Edge combines the new innovative technologies, Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) and Service Oriented Integration (SOI) with Java Edge (Intentia's Java technology) and IBM's WebSphere middleware technology. He also emphasizes that Intentia is at least 18 months ahead of its competitors in implementing these advances.
"We are ready to deploy these new on-demand technologies when grid computing infrastructures, such as those being developed by IBM, become available," says Wettergren. "At Intentia, we have always taken the long term view. In 1998, we were the first enterprise solution company to announce a major technology shift to Java - a shift many of our competitors have still to go through, with considerable risk.
"Since then, we have been first to adopt all the new Internet-based standards, in line with Intentia's 'Perfect Partnership' promise. This gives our customers guaranteed protection for their technology investments, and a promise to deliver real value to their businesses ahead of their competitors - with minimal financial and commercial risk."
Wettergren goes on to say that during the past few years many companies have tried to create collaborative value communities, "…but many have been thwarted by the relatively high cost and time required to do this with conventional technology". He concluded that Movex Edge turns aspirations into reality, improves return on IT investment and utilization of assets, and creates more efficient and profitable supply chains.
Intentia is a leading supplier of e-collaboration solutions. Visit Intentia's Web site at http://www.intentia.com
