360Commerce Announces Summer Release of 360Enterprise Central Office; Real-time, Central View of Data and Control of Operations Offers Shrink Reduction and Store Optimization.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Retail Systems 2003 Conference and Exposition

Booth #412

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2003

360Commerce, a leading provider of integrated commerce software for retailers, today announced the summer availability of their 360Enterprise(TM) Central Office application. A demo of Central Office R1.5 will be available at the Retail Systems 2003 Conference and Exposition in Chicago, June 9-12 in 360Commerce's booth #412.

With over eleven years of experience working with leading retailers such as Circuit City, The Home Depot, Gap Inc., and KB Toys, 360Commerce has been able to pinpoint a missing element in store systems solutions and fill that gap with Central Office. Retailers have historically relied on outdated information, causing managers both at corporate and in the stores to turn to intuition or gut instinct to make and execute some of the crucial decisions they are faced with daily. J2EE-based Central Office, a centralized browser-based application, provides retailers with the ability to manage the flow of information across the enterprise and the ability to make and execute decisions based on that intelligence - in real time. Central Office provides a centralized operational data store for retail information received from the stores and other channels for a 360-degree view of operations.

Central Office's Transaction Tracker feature enables retailers to provide easy access to cross-channel, enterprise-wide transaction and electronic journal detail, including electronic customer signatures, to more quickly catch cashier fraud or training deficiencies, resolve credit disputes, reduce paper storage costs, and provide real-time actionable data.

Through the Data Manager feature, retailers can better manage and control the distribution of critical information and updates throughout the enterprise, from the point of origin to the appropriate system of record, to ensure timely updates and consistency of store policies. Integrated job scheduling and workflow manages what data, such as sales or parameter settings, is sent where and when, and automatically alerts the operater if a job fails.

Central Office also includes a Management Dashboard, which puts actionable information and relevant task lists at the fingertips of managers at all levels of the organization, anytime and anywhere. It enables retailers to better respond to the rapidly changing business conditions that impact profitability through such features as up-to-the-minute business metrics like Flash Sales and critical tasks such as pending import and export jobs and data distributions awaiting approval.

"By working in partnership with our customers, we have been able to extract those elements that have been missing from the retail technology marketplace and build a product offering to address these high ROI needs," said Jerry Rightmer, chief technology officer at 360Commerce. "Leveraging key technologies such as Web services, standards such as ARTS and IXRetail, and the J2EE programming language, we have been able to rapidly bring a new product to market that delivers store optimization and shrink reduction. Retailer feedback has been very positive and underscores the tremendous potential Central Office has to increase a retailer's bottom line."

The initial release of Central Office is currently in the implementation phase at a major retailer and will be generally available this summer, says 360Commerce. Underscoring 360Commerce's commitment to providing freedom-of-choice, this new application will support J2EE application servers and products from industry leaders such as BEA Systems, Inc., IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems Inc.

About 360Commerce

From the point-of-service to the back office and across the enterprise, 360Commerce's J2EE solutions capture and leverage operational intelligence in real time to help maximize store profitability. Leading multi-channel retailers on 360Commerce's customer list include Apple, Burlington Coat Factory, Circuit City, Cole National, The Home Depot, Gap Inc., and KB Toys. 360Commerce products include 360Store Point-of-Sale, Unleashed(TM) POS, Back Office, Gift Registry, and 360Enterprise(TM) Central Office. The vendor with more Java store systems customers than any other in the retail market, 360Commerce enables retailers to minimize risk and cost of ownership with extremely flexible, open solutions that can be quickly integrated and customized and that maximize both existing and future investments.

On the Net: 360Commerce site: http://www.360Commerce.com

Trademarks: 360Commerce, 360Store, 360Enterprise and Unleashed are trademarks or registered trademarks of 360Commerce, Inc. J2EE is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.