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Month: December 2006

Must have tools for blogging

Several months back, David Terrar tagged me on "must have tools" for blogging. Here is my list: WordPress – the host of this blog Technorati – ranking that is all important. I am getting closer to 100,000th mark. Qumana – Blog writer/editor RSS Feed – tracking other blogs – Now that I use IE7, there is really no need for bloglines anymore Mybloglog – unfortunately I cannot use this with my blog due to it being hosted by WordPress. However, it is useful when visiting other blogs to identify who else have recently visited those blogs. That gives instant credibility…

5 Things you might not know about me

It’s the festive season as well as the silly season, i.e. people are less stressed. It seems that there is a game of blog-tag going around the blogsphere in which bloggers are sharing 5 things about themselves that relatively few people know, and then tagging five other bloggers to it. David Terrar tagged me yesterday asking 5 things that typical reader of my blog might not know about me. Here goes: I went to a primary school in Sri Lanka called Gothami Kanishta Vidyalaya (GKV). Kanishta means primary. Vidyalaya means School. Gothami is a name of a woman. In fact…

EIPP Market Analysis by Forrester

You can download the original powerpoint presentation from Forrester (thanks to Jean-Philippe Massin for the story). The title above is A/P EIPP. Once again, the theme is about purchaser-centric exchange solutions. I personally do not like the idea of segregating companies into purchasers and suppliers. In the long run, the solutions that cater for both will be the winners. Colour grid is (years are 2003 to 2006 from left to right): Light brown – service revenues Dark brown – subscription revenues Light blue – Maintenance Dark blue – License revenues Bit confusing with the title here, as it says EIPP…

Technorati Rankings – 125,161th

I checked my technorati rankings today, and to my amazement, I have moved up to 125,161th position. This is as a result of 102 links from 28 blogs. How have my friends and I done in relation to progress since 27th Oct 2006: Dennis Howlett – 9,607 (680 links from 210 blogs) –> 15,597 (717 links from 199 blogs 20 members) – what’s going on here Dennis? David Terrar – 45,307 (108 links from 49 blogs)     –> 41,864 (193 links from 79 blogs 3 members) – that’s more like it. Dave Stephens -79,650 (360 links from 29 blogs) —> 101,250…

Burns e-Commerce, Accountis, OB10 and Causeway get new facelifts in 2006

I used to really dislike the website of Burns e-Commerce. Probably they hated it as well. Look at the new facelift given (launched in Dec 06). Not just that, there is a new logo as well. But I am disappointed with the followings: Details on the management has been removed. I know they went through some turmoil in the past, and now the board is limited to two directors. But this should not be a reason to not display who is running the company. I like the presentation, but cramming too many sketches into a limited space clutter the site.…

Introducing Burns e-Commerce

Another pioneer in the EIPP space is Burns e-Commerce from the North West of England, in fact not too far from where I live. Founded in 1989, now in 3rd incarnation, the beX (Burns Business Exchange) handles documents worth well over Euro23bn pa for global brands such as Philips, Eli Lilly, Office Depot, Intel and Citibank. Above shows the document flow within beX. Their offering seems to be limited to 3 document types (purchase order, invoice and remittance), which keeps the solution simple, but also put a significant limitation. Modern systems should at least handle 9 document types (request for…

Introducing ebillingnews.com

Are you looking for news aggregators on EIPP? If so, it might well be worth visiting ebillingnews.com. Other than Accountis, not many companies are listed on this site. Looks like more work is required by the operators of this site. Tags: EIPP, eBillingnews.com

Introducing Microgen – eBilling or eInvoicing?

The term "billing" is usually associated with consumers, whilst the term "invoice" is used in the context of one business buying services or goods from another business. In the case of LSE listed Microgen, I believe, the term "billing" is used for B2B. Microgen’s services include: Managed services – rapid deployment and minimal up-front payment Change management Customer adaptation programme Powerful credit management application to improve cash flow Available on line for 90 days from date of despatch – can be stored longer Most of the solutions you see in the market place are driven by A/P functions, but here…

American Express buys Harbor Payments

American Express has signed an agreement to acquire Atlanta-based Harbor Payments, a privately-held provider of Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) systems. Harbor Payments was formed in 2000 and head quartered in Atlanta with 200 employees. Its technology centre is based in Bangalore and has offices throughout the USA. Its sales channels include Bank of New York among number of large corporates. Harbor has four platforms, these being: invoices – 55 clients including UPS, Kodak, P&G and American Express billing – 100+ clients including Chevron payments – 100+ clients including Liz Claiborne claims – Invoice Harbour is a web based…