Bowstreet Introduces Next-Generation Portal Solution; Speeds Creation and Mass Customization of Portals; Converges e-business Initiatives.

Business/Technology Editors

LYNNFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Bowstreet (www.bowstreet.com) today announced the commercial availability of Business Web Portal Solutions, a ready-to-use suite of products that enables businesses to produce massively customizable portals to expedite many of today's most pressing e-business initiatives. These initiatives include enterprise information sharing, eCRM, syndicated storefronts, corporate intranets, partner extranets and supply chain collaboration.

Because Business Web Portals are built on top of the Bowstreet(TM) Business Web Factory, companies can realize massive economies of scale by aggregating disparate e-business initiatives on a single, vendor-neutral platform. (See related press release, "Bowstreet delivers the next breakthrough in web services: packaged e-business solutions.") Now, using Business Web Portals, non-technical business people can produce customized portals for thousands of different users and dozens of e-business initiatives, with minimal help from IT and in a fraction of the time and cost required by traditional "hard-wired" enterprise portal solutions. This signals the redefinition of "portal" from just aggregating content inside a corporation to assembling and delivering content and business processes across the Internet, to any kind of device anywhere - on-the-fly.

The Thread's Executive VP of Operations, Gene Ostrovsky explains, "The nature of the apparel industry requires uniquely tailored renderings of The Thread's product and service offerings for each of our customer's supply chains. The other portal vendors that we evaluated couldn't deliver the mass customization or keep up with changes inherent in our business in a cost-effective way. Bowstreet's Business Web Portals provide us with an out-of-the-box method to quickly customize and reuse existing applications that we can then embed in any customer or partner site, syndicating our presence across the Internet."

Business Web Portals can assemble business process components from legacy systems and client/server applications such as ERP, CRM and supply chains, as well as web services from Microsoft.NET, Sun ONE, Oracle Dynamic Services, IBM Web Services, and/or HP E-Speak as they become available. Business Web Portals include plug-and-play web services "modules" for news, Microsoft Outlook and e-mail integration, and other business functions, as well as point-and-click wizards. Already in production with several customers, Business Web Portals also power Bowstreet's own partner and customer service portals.

"Bowstreet's Business Web Portals take the portal category to an entirely new level - replacing rigid client/server and hand-coded applications from traditional portal vendors with a component-based architecture and parametric automation technology," stated Bob Crowley, president and CEO of Bowstreet. "The future of portals lies in the ability for businesses to provide the ultimate user experience to their customers, partners and employees. This will be accomplished by empowering business people to create and massively customize thousands of portals with individualized views - all without writing new code."

"Bowstreet's entry into portal and packaged applications markets is a logical next step in the evolution of the company's web services platform," said James Kobielus, analyst with The Burton Group. "Bowstreet has clearly recognized that standards-based and directory-enabled portal products will be critical platforms for interoperable web services. Standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI), and Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) will be critical to the development of interoperable web services, and Bowstreet has taken the right approach in committing to support these and other industry specifications."

Putting portal power in the hands of business people

Bowstreet's parametric automation system makes customizing and proliferating portals a point-and-click proposition.

Powerful wizards enable business people to create new portals for their customers, partners and employees, then customize the look, feel, content, behavior and access rights to information, applications and services. An added feature is the ability for business people to embed portals they create in customers', partners' and suppliers' web sites, instantly extending market reach.

Users can securely delegate portal creation and customization to others within their organization, who can further delegate it across the enterprise, or even to customers and partners. For example, a major commercial insurer can create a custom portal for each corporate customer to which it provides life insurance. The corporate customer's human resources director can then create multiple intranet portals for each class of employee according to designated benefits package that would automatically determine what benefits processes (e.g., 401K, term life insurance, medical forms, etc.) and content each class would see. Each employee could then further customize the look, feel and behavior of his personal benefits portal.

Once created, the components that make up each portal - and the portal itself - become reusable components stored in the Business Web Factory's "warehouse," enabling them to be modified and repurposed. The company's e-business assets thus grow organically, versus becoming static as they do in programming-bound organizations.

Business Web Portals include the following:

-- Portal Wizard - a point-and-click wizard that business people use to create and customize portals, embed portals in partner web sites, and delegate portal creation privileges.

-- Portal Architect - a wizard that IT staff can use to define new portal types

-- Portal Modules - ready-to-use, customizable web services that business people can plug into portals, such as news feeds, weather reports, maps, e-mail, chat, discussion forums, stock tickers and search engines. New modules can be created by IT based on vendor-neutral standards.

-- Portal Administrator - a console to delegate who can use and create portals.

About Bowstreet

Bowstreet, recognized as a leader in web services by industry analysts, enables businesses to transform themselves from hard-wired enterprises into fluid, purpose-driven "business webs." Bowstreet's pioneering web services automation system, the Bowstreet(TM) Business Web Factory and Business Web Portal Solutions (including enterprise information sharing, eCRM, syndicated storefronts, corporate intranets, partner extranets and supply chain collaboration), brings massive economies of scale to e-business. Bowstreet empowers IT people to create reusable application models that business people can then "mass-customize" and manage - without programming - for customers, partners and employees. More information may be found at www.bowstreet.com or by calling 781-586-7100.

Bowstreet is a trademark of Bowstreet, Inc. All other company names and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or owners.