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Softlab Selects Extricity for Automotive Industry e-Business Initiative

22 May 2000

Softlab Selects Extricity for Automotive Industry e-Business Initiative; Extricity B2B Platform to Provide B2B Capabilities to Softlab's ASPKappa-Hosted Supply Chain Service

    REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.--May 18, 2000-- Extricity(tm), Inc., a leading platform provider for business-to-business relationship management (B2BRM) announced that its B2B platform serves as the collaboration engine for BMW Softlab's ASPKappa B2B hub that was announced earlier today. Softlab Ltd. is an international IT solutions provider and a BMW Group company.
    ASPKappa is an application service provider (ASP) solution initially targeted at the automotive manufacturing industry. The product is available on a rental model to allow the greatest scope of partner participation. With the ASP model, small- and medium-sized companies can benefit from a robust B2B solution that would ordinarily be out of reach due to financial, resource or technical constraints. It also allows them to concentrate on their main business while Softlab manages and hosts the B2B solution on their behalf.
    "ASPKappa will fundamentally transform the automotive industry supply chain and deliver new efficiencies that reduce costs, accelerate decision making and improve communications and management," said Phil Dawson, portfolio manager (industry) at Softlab. "To achieve this vision, Extricity was selected based on its ability to deliver a single platform that automatically integrates heterogeneous information flows with back-end applications, and therefore, makes automatic ebusiness supply chains a reality."
    Extricity's family of B2B software products allow companies to manage the internal and external sharing of information and the execution of interactions among software applications and business partners over the Internet. Extricity offers any-to-every, multi-partner management and security features needed for integration and collaboration with customers, partners, suppliers and Net marketplaces.
    "Softlab's announcement is another example of how B2B solutions are enabling companies to change the way they do business. The automotive industry, in particular, is rapidly adopting and implementing ebusiness initiatives to streamline its traditionally fragmented supply chain," said Dave Cope, vice president of marketing for Extricity. "Our alliance with BMW's Softlab leverages our shared strengths and realizes our joint vision to achieve global market interoperability for the automotive industry, and to ultimately offer this solution to other industries as well."