Apparel Industry Veterans Select Bowstreet Business Web Factory to Create Tailored Business Webs of Manufacturers, Suppliers and Partners.

Business Editors

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 2000

The Thread will use XML-based web services to quickly connect

companies on the fly, expanding their market reach and seizing

efficiencies of the 'Net

The Thread (www.thethread.com), an advanced global sourcing network for the apparel industry, has selected the Bowstreet(TM) Business Web Factory as its core technology platform to connect manufacturers, suppliers, partners and retailers in flexible web-based supply chains around the globe. Analysts say the $200 billion domestic apparel industry could save up to $34 billion a year using automated web connections through accelerated production cycle times, reduced mistakes, enhanced communication and other supply chain efficiencies.

The Thread, located in the heart of New York's fashion district, was founded by apparel and technology entrepreneurs who have assembled a first-class management team comprising executives with previous experience from Liz Claiborne, The Limited Inc. and Warnaco.

"Apparel organizations have to be enabled to rapidly find trading partners, collaborate, synchronize production and accelerate product delivery - all over the Internet and on a project basis," said Jeff Poploff, TheThread's co-founder, president and chief operating officer. "With traditional technology, we'd have to take the time, trouble and expense of hard-wiring everyone to everybody else. This is a huge constraint for our competitors and a strong differentiator for The Thread."

The Thread, which goes live this month, will extend participating companies' market reach while reducing their risk and transaction costs. It will also reduce participating companies' reliance on spreadsheets, e-mail faxes, and phone calls for communications and management. The Thread will continuously track and report performance on all partners and processes using the service.

"The Thread is reinventing the domestic apparel industry by stripping the cost and complexity out of the global fragmentation that characterizes this industry," said Bob Crowley, president and CEO of Bowstreet (www.bowstreet.com), a leading provider of XML infrastructure for business-to-business (B2B) web marketplaces. "Bowstreet will enable The Thread to meet its two most critical success factors: speed and dynamic customization over the web."

Bowstreet helps The Thread construct, sew together web services

The Bowstreet(TM) Business Web Factory 2 is an XML infrastructure platform for publishing, finding, combining, managing and deploying any and all web services. Web services are discrete business processes wrapped in Extensible Markup Language, the lingua franca of business-to-business Internet commerce. Bowstreet's Business Web Factory lets non-technical businesspeople create and customize an unlimited number and variety of online business relationships simply by pointing and clicking.

"Our strategic partnership with The Thread is very promising," said Bowstreet Vice President Andy Palmer. "It's gratifying that The Thread, with its deep domain expertise and technical prowess, chose Bowstreet as its technology platform to create a new generation of Web-based supply chain solutions for the apparel industry."

Instead of one monolithic application, The Thread will present apparel industry professionals with customized web pages bearing collections of web services from multiple partners. Services include sourcing, letters of credit management, financial services, work-in-progress tracking, auctions, industry knowledge provision (e.g., tariffs, data, news, vessel schedules), vendor catalog management, one-to-one advertising, price quoting, purchase orders, shipping, receiving and more.

As The Thread participants create private supply chains, each user within each company will see individually customized menus of their apparel projects, factories and partners along with performance scorecards, customizable reports and virtual office tools.

The Thread will proliferate its presence across the Internet by publishing some of these web services to businessweb.com, Bowstreet's trading hub for web services, enabling other potential apparel industry suppliers and buyers to embed these services in other business webs of their own making.

About The Thread

The Thread.com provides ready-to-use, web-based solutions to streamline companies' own Private Supply Chain(TM) and helps to manage everything from design specs to bid packages, pre-production approvals to Work-In-Progress (WIP) reports, L/C planning to ASNs and much more. The Thread's network also offers a full range of services including inspections, logistics, shipping and financing. Whether you are a very large or very small company, their solutions are highly flexible and allow companies to do business the way that works for them. For more information, visit www.thethread.com or call [phone].

About Bowstreet

Bowstreet provides next-generation Internet infrastructure designed to transform the World Wide Web from a collection of static web sites into a fluid web of interconnected businesses called "business webs." These dynamic and highly customized B2B marketplaces enable companies to sell new products and services, create new channels of distribution and develop new business models at a fraction of the time and cost of today's approaches. Bowstreet's patent-pending product, the Bowstreet Business Web Factory, is designed to enable companies to form instant B2B connections, create richer offerings for existing customers and enable line-of-business managers to take complete control of e-business without technical help. For more information, visit www.bowstreet.com or call 603-559-1900.

Bowstreet is a trademark of Bowstreet.com Inc. All other company names and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

The Thread is a trademark of The Thread.com LLC. All other company names and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.