Just days after going public on the NASDAQ stock exchange, Eprise yesterday announced enhancements to its Web site content management platform aimed squarely at the hot business-to-business e-commerce market.
The most significant enhancement in Eprise Participant Server 2.6 is that it now supports Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)-based directory services including Novell Directory Services eDirectory and Microsoft Active Directory. This means that companies building online exchanges can use existing directories to authenticate users of Eprise Participant Server and to personalize the Web pages shown to each business partner and customer.
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"Companies benefit because they work only with a single directory. They don't have to maintain independent logon information for Eprise," explains Bob Strong, vice president of engineering.
Most large corporations have network directories that house vital information about employees and business partners such as their departments, job functions and authority to view or edit information. Eprise now can use these directories to manage the personalization of Web pages for each viewer.
"To personalize the presentation the Web server makes to the individual, you need to control each person's access to facilities like editing Web content," Strong says. "With the extensions to LDAP services, we're able to use the existing corporate database information to manage this personalization."
Eprise Participant Server allows companies to distribute responsibility for Web site content development and provides such management tools as access control, workflow and e-mail approvals. Adding LDAP support is key for developing intranets and business-to-business Web sites, but it doesn't apply to business-to-consumer Web sites where users are anonymous.
Strong says Eprise's corporate customers, which include Sharp Electronics, EMC, Novell and American Express, asked for LDAP support because they want to reduce the number of corporate directories that they maintain.
"This is an extremely significant announcement for us," Strong says. "It broadens our ability to go after the larger corporate customers and larger Web sites."
Other new features in Participant Server 2.6 include improved workflow and site management features that allow Web site developers to publish multiple pages at a time rather than single pages. The package also lets Web site visitors apply their own user interface to the information on an Eprise Participant Server site, a feature that will be useful for channel partners.
Eprise Participant Server 2.6 is shipping and costs around $100,000 for a server license and professional services. The server software runs on Sun Solaris and Windows NT.
In separate news, Eprise also announced a new business-to-business customer: Chempoint.com, which distributes specialty chemicals over the Web.
Eprise offered four million shares on the NASDAQ market last Friday. The shares were originally offered at $15 and rose 60% by the day's end.
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