ATLANTA - Sept. 21, 2004 — Inovis, a leading provider of business commerce automation solutions, today announced a significant upgrade to its BizManager family of products with the release of BizManager 2.5, a comprehensive solution for trading partner connectivity and integration. The latest version provides a complete B2B Gateway with improved support for large organizations conducting commerce electronically with trading partners, enabling enhanced hub automation capabilities to simplify partner management and deliver greater return on investment.

With widespread adoption of Applicability Statement 2 (AS2), Fortune 100 companies face many intricate connectivity and network integration issues as their trading partner networks expand with the influx of business partners. Many large retailers must support multiple users, while coordinating high-transaction volumes. As retail trading hubs grow, it becomes increasingly difficult for organizations to monitor the activity of each member connected to the real-time trading community, as well as each business transaction taking place.

To address these challenges, Inovis embedded new features and functionality into the company’s BizManager suite of solutions to provide a central point of management, allowing organizations to easily manage trading partner relationships and measure business performance on one accessible platform.

"Integration vendors have embraced the concept of a B2B Gateway and are rapidly developing and marketing their vision of B2B Gateways to the market,” said Frank Kenney, research analyst at Gartner Research. “Centrally managing B2B interactions gives companies deeper insight into the technical aspects of transactions delivery, provides a central reusable repository for partner profiles and processes and provides support for the myriad emerging and existing transport and communications protocols and security standards and mechanisms."

New Functionality
The new functionality available in BizManager 2.5 allows organizations to take more control of their trading partner relationships. By improving visibility throughout the hub and establishing a central point of management, organizations can monitor and track transactions in real-time, minimizing critical errors and exceptions as they occur. With BizManager 2.5 companies can strengthen relationships with their trading partners and grow revenues by improving communications processes and increasing the volume of business handled electronically.

Key enhancements in BizManager 2.5 include:

• Certification Management Enhancements and Certificate Monitor — Certificate managing and monitoring features enable users to minimize the number of errors associated with expired business certificates and prevent subsequent loss of business. Users can securely and accurately track the authenticity of certificates and generate ongoing reports in accordance with expiration dates.
• Exception Dashboard — The exception dashboard allows users of BizManager to more efficiently track errors by providing information relevant to each specific case or the scope of each user’s responsibility. The transaction-based view of the dashboard provides a central location from which users can coordinate and manage business activity.
• Transaction Archiving and Data Aging — For high-volume hubs, organizations can categorize and archive transaction data to ensure active database records are current and maintained at an optimum operational level, while still providing access to historical information. The feature archives Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Business XML (ebXML) transactions, maintaining the latest application status for each transaction.

"To address management challenges faced by large retailers in light of growing trading communities, organizations have turned to Inovis to increase business efficiencies and facilitate secure communications," said Michael Croxton, Inovis’ senior vice president of marketing. "We continue our focus on innovation to provide the tools needed to automate activity for our customers. With the added features to BizManager, retailers can more effectively manage their diverse trading partner community to maximize relationships for business gain."

Inovis’ BizManager suite is the most comprehensive solution available for trading partner and business messaging, connectivity and integration. A Web-based solution created to manage the flow and secure transport of electronic data, documents and information, the BizManager suite helps organizations manage their trading partner and business communities within a secure and cost-effective environment.

The new BizManager 2.5 features are available with BizLink, an enterprise-level, server solution for scalable business commerce automation, BizManager400, built for the IBM iSeries (AS/400) platform and BizConnect Professional, Inovis’ desktop solution for companies or divisions handling a limited number of trading or business partners. For pricing and availability information contact Inovis at info@inovis.com or 1-877-4INOVIS.

About Inovis
Inovis is a leader in providing business commerce automation solutions that facilitate the effective management of retail, supply and manufacturing partnerships. With more than 20 years of experience and over 17,000 customers, Inovis provides a complete line of B2B software and managed services. These solutions enable companies to optimize profitability through timely and efficient communications with their trading partner communities. For more information visit www.inovis.com.

"Inovis" is a trademark of Inovis, Inc.

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