Cyclone Commerce Joins STAR and is First to Implement STAR's XML Standards with Volkswagen Dealers

MCLEAN, Va., April 12 -- STAR, the IT standards body for the retail automotive industry, has announced that Cyclone Commerce, Inc., has joined its membership, and is the first software vendor to implement STAR's ebXML solution for major automotive manufacturers.

Currently Volkswagen of America is utilizing Cyclone Commerce's B2B management platform. The software uses STAR's Transport Guidelines to transport STAR standard automotive retail XML data between Volkswagen and Audi dealers and its factory systems. By creating this standardized data exchange and as dealer adoption continues, Volkswagen and Audi dealers should realize more accurate and timely data when communicating with their business partners.

"By implementing STAR standards and Cyclone Commerce's software, Volkswagen of America hopes to allow affordable and effective systems integration with a large majority of our dealers," said Eric Conn, Partner Integration Strategist, Volkswagen of America.

STAR (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail) is a non-profit, auto industry-wide initiative to create voluntary IT standards for the data elements and transmission format used by manufacturers, dealers, and retail system providers to communicate with each other. STAR's initiatives will result in a more efficient data exchange between dealers and manufacturers, with lower costs, more accurate and timely data, and increased levels of customer satisfaction.

"STAR is leading the way in making the auto retail chain more efficient and customer centric by establishing an interoperable solution by which data can be transferred and shared in real time," said Dave Bennett, CTO and co- founder of Cyclone Commerce. "Cyclone's existing implementations of STAR's ebXML standard are oriented around giving dealers and suppliers greater access to the information they need in real time while significantly reducing the IT communications burden they shoulder. This should help give early adopters a competitive edge for communicating with their business partners."

"For Cyclone and Volkswagen to embrace and implement STAR's ebXML Transport and XML standards -- it's very exciting. I think this adoption will prove to be an important catalyst to spark the rest of the automotive industry to implement standards for dealer communications," says Tom Campisi, STAR Communications Chair.

  About STAR (www.starstandard.org )
  Source: STAR

The Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) organization is the Information Technology (IT) standards organization for the retail automotive industry. The goal of the STAR organization is to use IT standards as a catalyst in fulfilling the business information needs of dealers and manufacturers while reducing the time and effort previously required supporting this activity.

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, STAR is a not-for-profit volunteer organization and its members include Dealers, Manufacturers and Retail System Providers (Rasps). As members, they are interested in developing, promoting, and administering voluntary IT standards in the retail automotive industry and improving the effectiveness, timeliness and competitiveness of the IT solutions needed within the retail automotive industry.

  STAR membership roster:
  Dealer Groups: NADA

Retail System Providers: ADP, AIAG, AFSA, Arkona, Auto/Mate Inc., Cyclone Commerce, DealerTrack, EDS Automotive Retail Group, Motorcycle Industry Council, NAT, Inc., NeoSynergy, LLC, PBS Financial Systems Inc., OAGI, Procede Software, Reynolds & Reynolds, RouteOne, Sprint, Sun Microsystems, The Cobalt Group, Tibco, UCS, 5Square Systems Corporation

Manufacturers: American Honda Motor Co., Inc., American Suzuki Motor Corp., BMW of North America, Inc., DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corp., Jaguar Cars, Kia Motors America, Mazda North American Operations, Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, Inc., Nissan North America, Inc., Porsche Cars North America, Inc., Renault SA, Saab Cars USA, Subaru, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Volkswagen of America, Volvo Cars of North America

  About Cyclone Commerce (www.cyclonecommerce.com )
  Source: Cyclone Commerce

Cyclone Commerce, Inc., The Collaborative Commerce Company, provides market-leading solutions that enable businesses to simply connect manage and collaborate with their business partners over the Internet. Cyclone's software and services solve a unique and urgent problem for global 2000 businesses to extend their enterprises "outside the four walls", to dynamically exchange and manage business critical information and commerce transactions with suppliers, customers and other partners. Founded in 1996, Cyclone Commerce is headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Customers: Cyclone's 1,500 customers are some of the most well recognized brands, including 2 of the world's top automobile manufacturers, 3 of the top 4 national retailers, 30 top suppliers of consumer packaged goods, the top 10 pharmaceutical manufacturers, all of the top healthcare distributors, the world's top 2 computer manufacturers, the top 3 electronics distributors, and more than 100 financial services organizations, including the world's largest investment provider.

Selected Awards: Computerworld's "Innovative Technology Award," 10/02; Upside's "Hot 100," 2002; Retail Information Systems "#1 Retail Satisfaction," 1/03; Consumer Goods Technology, "Best of Breed," 1/03