BURLINGTON, MASS. (03/24/2000) - Open Market Inc. Monday is expected to unveil a suite of electronic catalog and content management application tools for creating online marketing campaigns and personalizing information presentation.
Designed to run on top of Open Market's Java-based Content Server 3, which runs on the Netscape Application Server, the four products are intended for use by executives without any help from IT staff.
The products include Catalog Centre, for online catalog creation; Personalization Centre, for rules-based presentation of Web content based on demographics; Marketing Studio, for creating and managing online marketing campaigns; and Syndication Centre, which lets users schedule encrypted automated delivery of content between Web sites.
"These products make it possible for people like me, who are marketing people and not technical, to organize content and set up online promotions," says Michele LaMura, president of the Winchester, Mass., firm BuyIndies.com, a Web site that sells independently produced films. "We've been looking at early versions of these Open Market products and plan to use them when they're ready."
BuyIndies.com already uses Open Market's Transact Server for processing shopping-cart credit card transactions, as well as Internet Publishing System, which has been renamed Content Server.
Catalog Centre starts at $30,000 and is available now, while the other three packages will be out by the second quarter (see graphic).
In addition to the new e-commerce products, Open Market says it is updating an older product, Content Centre, which runs on the Content Server platform to manage information acquisition, workflow and the publishing of information.
The new release, which will be available next quarter for $20,000, will include support for the Wireless Application Protocol, as well as a set of XML tags for recognizing content updates.
Open Market is also updating Transact Server, with Version 5.0 expected to include a universal shopping cart to support multiple stores and currencies so shoppers can purchase from several Web sites and check out once. Transact 5.0 will also have a set of 14 new APIs for functions such as fulfillment, user service, payment account service, fax interface, store and purchase history.www.openmarket.com.