Whenever a small IT company announced twenty years ago that it was 'forming a strategic alliance' with one of the classic computer vendors, sceptics would take that as a euphemism for 'take-over' or 'sell-out'. Today, the battle order has changed, and the Great Names heavily rely on an association with companies only a fraction of their size to help deliver encompassing solutions to an increasingly competitive market. Reports that the UK electronic commerce specialist Triptych Systems had struck up an alliance with NCR would suggest, therefore, a carefully thought-out development strategy on the part of both organisations; where the potential strength of the partnership would exceed the total capabilities of the parties trading on their own initiative.
It would be easy to take the NCR pedigree 'as read'; that of a computer vendor known for building large commercial systems at one end of the scale and offering (more recently) UNIX-based platforms at the other. While that profile would certainly have been true even a decade ago, the company has changed virtually beyond recognition, twice over. There was a period in the mid-'90s when NCR's identity changed completely (to AT&T Computer Systems), for example, before a successful de-merger and the company's distinctive logo appeared once again on its literature.
No longer a manufacturer of hardware for the business computing community, NCR has been gaining a formidable reputation in developing enterprise solutions running under the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.
The choice of Windows NT was more than an attempt simply to follow industry trends, as Peter Yarwood, the Channels Sales Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa at NCR explained. "The partnership between Microsoft and NCR goes back to when Windows NT was first being developed. As the only machines supporting symmetrical Intel processors at the time, our platforms were selected as the development vehicle for the new enterprise operating system.
"Though the company maintained a low public profile on the Windows NT front, we secured a 40% market share of NT-based solutions for the first couple of years. NCR has continued to work closely with Microsoft, and Windows NT has been scaled successfully to 8 processors, while the company introduced early in 1998 a 'Failover' Windows NT solution that is now being distributed to Internet service providers and to support business critical applications."
Still focusing on providing business solutions (predominantly to the retail trade), NCR has been creating what would once have been described as 'turnkey' solutions. An alliance with Storage Computer has given NCR the data storage capabilities it needs to continue supporting its chosen sector, where systems reliability and the ability to handle high throughputs of data are pre-requisites for any vendor. With partners like Storage Computer already in place, NCR has sought to capture on its Windows NT environment some of the market won for its established Teradata data warehousing package. Converting this application to run under Windows NT is giving those enterprise environments access to systems handling in excess of 1 Terabyte on NCR's scalable platforms.
With the credentials of NCR established on the Windows NT front, some of the logic behind its alliance with Triptych starts to emerge. Based in the Home Counties of England, the company can itself claim an unusually long track record by the standards of a constantly changing computing industry.
Formed back in 1983 as a broadly-based software development company, Triptych started focusing on the IT requirements of the retail sector at the start of the '90s as a means of differentiating itself within a crowded marketplace. Within two years, the company had become one of the dominant suppliers to the book distribution industry, with its Bestseller stock management system, Buyline EDI and a selection of bespoke systems. The customer base ranged from the Leviathan WH Smith to independent retailers throughout the UK, Ireland and overseas.
Triptych had to clear several technical hurdles along the way, including the development of product databases able to support in excess of a million titles from literally thousands of suppliers. These problems were compounded by the many different EPoS and EDI standards that were encountered along the way.
As Derek Munns, the Product and Business Development Manager at Triptych observed, the company accumulated a significant level of expertise in database development and systems integration as a result.
"Our earlier experience with a diversity of hardware platforms stood us in good stead when the Internet emerged as a vehicle for true electronic commerce. We see our skills as being able to put together a trading web site, and Microsoft's initiatives in this field appeared to provide the facilities required.
"There was an opportunity for using Microsoft's SiteServer facilities and we recognised that this would provide a suitable base for our own developments. There was clearly a commitment of investment to this product by Microsoft at a level which Triptych could never hope to achieve by itself."
The fact that the business community has been adopting Windows NT as the standard enterprise network had a bearing on the decision to adopt SiteServer. "More important was that fact that it was a technically appropriate platform for what we were trying to achieve."
Triptych's Mercantyle Internet Trading system was developed in 1996, using Microsoft SiteServer combined with the UK developer's Mistrale search engine. Though the company was broadening its field of applications from the narrow disciplines of the book trade, the first Mercantyle user was Bookpages [www.bookpages.co.uk], which went live in January 1997. As perhaps the most successful Internet bookseller operating out of the UK, Bookpages - a subsidiary company within the Triptych group - was acquired in April 1998 by the acknowledged world leader in this field, Amazon.com.
"From our first contact with the Internet as a medium for electronic commerce, we appreciated the potential for changing the way that people work and do business with each other. In the case of Bookpages, the greatest change was in the field of customer service. Here, we felt that we could provide a much better service using the Internet than local bookshops might otherwise be able to do."
Part of that service spectrum was the provision of the Bookpages facility through 'branches' existing commerce-enabled Web sites which can sell books, increase the total service package that they can offer their own customers - and make a commission on the sales in the process.
Derek Munns estimates that there are some 1,000 of these outlets, some of whom have been turning over enough business to justify setting up dedicated book-selling sites of their own. "Where the greatest potential exists lies is in the sites operated by special interest groups such as StarTrek. They are able to offer their members and enthusiasts a more comprehensive service."
Book-selling is clearly an important component of Triptych's portfolio, but the UK developer would argue that its depth of technical knowledge in the electronic commerce arena underpins the whole of its strategy of developing eCommerce trading solutions across a range of businesses.
Indeed, there is evidence to indicate that Triptych has exploited some of the potential beyond its traditional market. It has, for example, designed and implemented an interactive web-site for Sales Finance & Leasing Ltd (SFL), a specialist IT systems rental and finance services company. The site provides direct links to SFL, so that users can apply for services on-line. Apart from providing detailed product particulars, the site supports an interactive 'calculator' (built in Java) to match solutions to users' budget and business requirements.
An on-line proposal form allows potential customers to apply for SFL's services. Before the site was established, Sales Finance & Leasing secured business direct from suppliers and limited personal recommendation. Using the Web site, the finance company has extended its scope and geographical coverage. Having an interactive web-site with eCommerce capabilities allowed SFL both to access customers more easily and ensure that they are up to date with 'product' information. Rather more important, it has given the finance company a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Based on the initial success of the site, Sales Finance & Leasing is reported to be examining ways of using the facility for selling computer-based training courses to leasing customers, and providing information on topics such as Year 2000.
Given the experience of Triptych Systems and the enterprise platforms which NCR was seeking to promote, there was a certain synergy to be exploited when the time came for the software developer to start forging alliances. Lynne Rea, the company's Alliance Manager, took up the story. "In a very short space of time, we were moving from being a specialist supplier to a generalist in a rapidly expanding arena. It was important, therefore, to get the company's name out into the trade."
NCR not only met Triptych's criteria for an alliance partner, but the solution base it was providing would complement the larger player's partner channel initiative. The Triptych team was aware of NCR's ties with Microsoft on the data warehousing front, suggesting that there was scope for solutions which could utilise large database resources. (Triptych had already gained more than a year's experience of its Mistrale environment).
For its own part, NCR saw two distinct strands of business developing with Triptych Systems. As a solutions vendor addressing the market through Value Added Resellers (VARs), there was an additional product set which they offer to add value in an increasingly competitive retail solutions arena.
But there was also a case for streamlining the 'interface' between NCR and these suppliers. Information has to be provided succinctly, yet with flexibility. VARs need the facility for configuring 'virtual systems' from the components of the solutions available from NCR: a web site drawing on some of Triptych's experience in the retail trade could be developed to achieve that. A well-constructed Web site could do more than simply provide useful information, however. As a commerce-enabled site, it could be used as a vehicle for VARs to order systems from NCR. Providing only the options for selection which could be taken up by a customer, NCR has avoided the situation where complete orders are invalidated on the grounds that particular configurations or purchasing options are not acceptable.
Marketing to a region encompassing the whole of Northern Europe and beyond, the Channel team which Peter Yarwood heads has to handle a variety of languages and national 'nuances' so far as end-user solutions are concerned. The web site developed by Triptych for NCR as part of its new relationship inherently accommodates these variations within the region.
That Triptych should develop electronic commerce solutions over the Internet as part of a package provided by its VARs to their customers speaks volumes for the confidence that NCR has in Triptych. But could that confidence be mis-placed? The Buckinghamshire company is not untypical of its genre in terms of staffing numbers, but would it not be stretched to the limit if its services were called upon extensively by the Value Added Resellers.
Munns does not see the situation in those terms. "Our experience has been primarily in adapting and extending existing solutions to meet new circumstances. Working with Microsoft SiteServer means that we can often re-build the configuration in that platform rather than develop a brand new application. Were we ever to be in the position where capacity were to become an issue, we have sufficient high-level staff able to conceive the framework of the application, and there is now enough expertise of Microsoft SiteServer tools in the marketplace for us to augment those resources as required."
For NCR, Triptych's comparative lack of scale posed no problems. Peter Yarwood again: "Most of the companies we deal with are small and highly specialised. Our own role is to bring together these 'best of breed' businesses and help achieve a market-leading solution. Small companies move more quickly so that we are able to take new concepts to market very rapidly."
Striking up relationships with vendors better able to address broad markets is certainly the route that companies like Triptych Systems have to take if they are not to become also-rans in a market where inactivity spells demise. It is perhaps significant that the 'medium' which has made such a relationship possible in this link with NCR was the pervasive Windows NT, overlaid with SiteServer. The IT industry is full of 'ifs' but if NT had not taken such aggressive steps into the enterprise marketplace, and SiteServer had failed in its role as a highly-configurable development tool, it really is unlikely that Triptych and NCR would ever have had a reason to share common interests.
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