Press Release

Sterling Commerce and Its Customers Define Multi-Enterprise SOA

Presentations at Gartner ITxpo Detail the Benefits of Multi-Enterprise SOA in Enabling Companies to Achieve Unmatched Growth While Combating IT Complexity

10/8/2007

Orlando, Fla. – Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), today introduced multi-enterprise service oriented architecture (SOA) during the Gartner ITxpo conference.  The conference — a forum for introducing innovative information technology (IT) solutions— is the ideal backdrop to discuss multi-enterprise SOA. Multi-enterprise SOA is the market-leading approach to creating and managing flexible business processes that span global value chains. It seamlessly manages the flow of information across organizational, departmental and geo-political domains, enabling organizations to rapidly adapt to changing business, technology and legislative environments and enable IT-driven growth. Six presentations on multi-enterprise SOA will be offered by Sterling executives and customers at Gartner ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., on Oct. 7 - 12.

"Sterling Commerce has always been focused on helping customers integrate their internal processes in a flexible manner that extends to customers, suppliers, distributors, warehouses, and other key internal and external partners," said Russell Scherwin, global director of product marketing for Sterling Commerce. "With multi-enterprise SOA, which encompasses business process integration, enterprise integration and business-to-business (B2B) collaboration, we are enabling our customers to extend revenue-generating processes to their partners – regardless of the technologies and standards employed within their partners’ different domains."

One presentation, "Empowering IT to Drive Growth," will be presented by Chris Johnson, vice president, global product management for Sterling Commerce. It will address top-line growth for chief executive officers as well as how leaders in the race for market share have made IT the power behind their complex global environments. The presentation will provide steps for best aligning IT with the needs of businesses that deal with the complexity of heterogeneity and change across their organizations’ various domains.

In another presentation, "Creating Competitive Advantage with Integration Technology," Scherwin will discuss multi-enterprise SOA, the convergence of B2B, application and process integration, and how this provides organizations with unparalleled speed, flexibility and adaptability.  Scherwin will outline four executive realizations, predicated on multi-enterprise SOA to use integration technology as a strategic weapon.

Several Sterling Commerce customers also will present on their experience with using the multi-enterprise SOA platform to enable growth by extending revenue-generating processes to their customers ― such as creating new sales channels, entering new markets and more efficiently serving customers. The following companies will present case studies:

• Sappi Fine Paper, a leading manufacturer of coated fine paper in North America. Marjorie Boles, global systems integration manager for Sappi Fine Paper, will present how the company incrementally built a multi-enterprise SOA through high-return on investment (ROI) projects that benefited multiple business units, increased revenue, improved collaboration with customers and ultimately made IT a strategic business unit. The multi-enterprise SOA platform is the foundation of a long-term, sustainable business architecture that allows the company to focus limited resources on integration initiatives that directly correlate to business value, rather than on low-level technology complexity.

• Jabil, a global electronics solutions company. Lowell Gilvin, eCommerce manager for Jabil, will present how the company used multi-enterprise SOA to support a member network with more than 1,000 partners. Employing a hybrid approach to hosting integration, they now focus their IT resources on a few larger, more complex partner relationships, while outsourcing the management of trading interactions for smaller partners with the Sterling Collaboration Network, thereby more efficiently allocating IT resources.

• Russell Investments, a global investment firm. Dennis Grant, technology consultant for Russell Investments, will present how the company met requirements for superior levels of scalability and performance necessary for managing service level agreements and the large message sizes from partners and customers. Platforms built for transactional purposes often can not handle these types of requirements.

• Johnson Controls, a global leader in building efficiency and power solutions for the automotive industry. Shaun Barnes, project manager North America EDI team for Johnson Controls, will present how their multi-enterprise SOA has decreased the time and cost for executing merger and acquisition activity. They will show how consolidating many B2B integration platforms from various geographies onto a common integration platform that additionally encompasses application and process integration power the seamless flow of information across global value chains and enables consistent business process management and visibility. 

Sterling Commerce executive and customer presentation dates, times and locations can be found online: http://agendabuilder.gartner.com/sym17/webpages/VendorDetail.aspx?vendor=78.

About Sterling Commerce
Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), has more than 30 years of leadership and expertise in helping FORTUNE 500® customers thrive in a global economy by optimizing the performance of their business communities. With nearly 30,000 customers worldwide, the company is one of the world’s largest providers of multi-enterprise collaboration solutions. Sterling Commerce has unparalleled experience in the retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications industries. For detailed, up-to-date information about Sterling Commerce and its solutions, visit www.sterlingcommerce.com.