NLINK BRINGS E-COMMERCE ONLINE

	This Application Service Provider (ASP) customer is a leading application service provider offering a complete, hosted solution that automates the business operations of multi-unit restaurant chains. They provide a comprehensive, web-based ASP solution that frees restaurant operators to focus on their business and their customers instead of their IT. The ASP solution integrates point of sale, in-store operating systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), polling, and business intelligence applications to provide business insights and operating information on-demand that enhances restaurant operators' ability to run their business.

THE BUSINESS PROBLEM In the world of electronic Commerce, customer take-on rate is essential to company survival and profitability. This customer needed a way to quickly bring on new customers regardless of their data format and communications transport preferences and to do so in a fast, cost-effective, maintainable and scalable manner. Surprisingly, our experience shows that many companies in the e-Commerce market overlook the problem of application integration and only retroactively realize that it can be a make-or-break issue for them. How can an e-Commerce company quickly develop a cost-effective integration solution that it didn’t initially realize it had? Many e-Commerce companies, such as ASPs and B2B exchanges, have no clearly identifiable competitive advantage over other players in the same vertical market except for their Management Team’s operational experience. This lack of differentiation can make it difficult to raise investment capital, especially in today’s market. How can these e-Commerce companies further differentiate themselves to attract investment capital? THE NLINK SOLUTION Using an EAI product as an integration hub in either an ASP or a B2B exchange network allows new customers to be brought on quickly, easily and in a maintainable manner. Only the NLINK® Rapid Application Integration (RAI) approach to interfaces allows companies to keep pace with the burst of new customers that these e-Commerce ventures initially experience. NLINK is being used by one of our ASP customers to provide a single point of integration for the data from different manufacturers’ Point of Sales (POS) terminals to tie to the ASP’s centrally located back-end systems. And, NLINK is being used by one of our B2B exchange customers to tie their customers' back-end systems to the exchange for seamless workflow. Multiple data formats, several interfaces, varying communications methods and a customer take-on rate that occurs in sharp bursts characterize the challenges that NLINK had to overcome. At least one of our e-Commerce customers has used their purchase and use of NLINK as a key differentiator in their fund-raising efforts. INTEGRATION SUMMARY PURPOSE Project Keywords e-Business Integration Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) Rapid Application Integration (RAI) INTERFACES Data Exchange Eight Systems Interfaces Twenty Data Formats Two Communications Methods SOFTWARE NLINK Components NLINK Server NLINK XML eXtender NLINK Flat File eXtender NLINK SQL eXtender NLINK Configuration Module (NCM) NLINK Management Module (NMM) HARDWARE NLINK Workstation Windows 2000 Server 450MHz Pentium III 256MB RAM 9.0GB Disk ENVIRONMENT CoNNectors, eXtenders, the NLINK Server and NLINK Modules are components of a total environment for delivering process integration within and between companies. The NLINK product suite has been independently certified on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista as a pre-requisite for continued inclusion in the Microsoft Certified Partner Program. As you would expect, NLINK operates equally well on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. REQUEST AN NLINK DEMO There`s really only so much information you can absorb by reading about an enterprise software product suite like NLINK. At some point you need to see the software in action and that`s what the NLINK Demo is all about. Click here to register. NLINK PRESENTATION VIDEOS If you are interested in learning more about the NLINK product suite but are not yet ready to schedule an interactive WebEx demo of the NLINK Product Suite but you would like to see some NLINK presentation videos click here to register. SALES AND PRICING INFORMATION For sales and pricing information regarding the NLINK Product Suite please contact: . TECHNICAL INFORMATION For more information regarding the technical details of the NLINK product solutions please contact: .