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Featured Research
IBM
WebSphere Commerce Suite 6.0
Rich Ecommerce Services,
Flexible Technologies, and Elegant Integration with External Applications
By Mitchell I. Kramer, July 31, 2008
NETTING
IT OUT
Many of your customers prefer doing business
with you online. They go to your Web sites to learn about your products
and services, to find products and/or services that address their needs,
to configure and price the products and/or service s that they’d
like to buy, and to purchase those products and/or services. They also
set up and manage accounts with you. When those customers are consumers,
we call these activities B2C (business to consumer) ecommerce.
IBM WebSphere Commerce, introduced in 1996, is IBM’s B2C (and B2B) ecommerce
offering. Its current version is 6.0 Feature Pack 3. IBM WebSphere Commerce
was and remains one of the leading software offerings for B2C ecommerce. IBM
claims that 1,500 customer organizations have implemented the product. You
can deploy it on-premise, hosted, or via SaaS subscription.
On the PSGroup Report Card for evaluating B2C ecommerce product and services,
IBM WebSphere Commerce earns "exceeds requirement" grades in
Web content, customer and product data, integration, and company viability.
It needs improvement in search and analytic functionality.
Without qualification, we recommend that you consider IBM WebSphere Commerce
as the software to run your B2C ecommerce site. Its packaged services and
easily customizable technologies provide excellent support for the activities
that your customers want to perform. IBM provides a wealth of samples and
examples that simplify and speed your implementation and packages an elegant,
Web Services-based approach to integration that supports the complete customer
cycle—from finding products to receiving them.
IBM WEBSPHERE COMMERCE
An Ecommerce Market Leader Since 1997
IBM WebSphere Commerce is IBM’s B2C ecommerce software offering. The
product was introduced as Net.Commerce Server in 1996. Its current version,
which was released in December 2007, is Version 6.0 Feature Pack 3. Across
the 12 years that it has been available, IBM claims that more than 1,500 customer
organizations have purchased and implemented WebSphere Commerce. We’ve
been writing about it since 1998. WebSphere Commerce was and is one of the
leading ecommerce applications in functionality, technology, and market penetration
across both B2C and B2B implementations in many industry segments.
You can license and deploy WebSphere Commerce in three ways: on-premise via
perpetual license from IBM, hosted via perpetual license from IBM, and
on demand as Software as a Service (SaaS) via subscription license from
IBM’s partners. Most WebSphere Commerce customers have on-premise
implementations. IBM began offering WebSphere Commerce SaaS deployment
just this year. IBM expects to have eight to twelve SaaS implementations
by the end of this year.
B2C Ecommerce Evaluation
Framework
© 2008 Patricia Seybold
Group Inc.
Illustration 1. This illustration shows
the evaluation criteria and sub-criteria of the PSGroup B2C Ecommerce
Evaluation Framework.
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