IBM Leads Industry With Comprehensive Strategy, Technologies for Electronic
Commerce

Electronic Shopping, Secure Transactions

SAN JOSE, Calif., May 1 (Internet World, Booth # 1207) . . . IBM today
showcased a series of electronic commerce products and technologies for
the development and support of secure electronic shopping environments.
The electronic commerce products and services highlighted today will help
businesses to create "virtual storefronts" on the Internet where consumers
will be able to shop, purchase and pay on line.

Among the announcements made today is the initial availability of IBM's
flagship electronic commerce product -- the IBM Net.Commerce system --
software that makes it possible for businesses to quickly, easily and
safely create virtual storefronts on the Internet. The Net.Commerce system
has been fully operational -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week -- since
March 10 as the Olympic Ticket Server for the 1996 Olympic Games, the
largest electronic commerce site on the Internet. Fans have purchased over
32,000 tickets through the Internet using this system***.

The Net.Commerce system is intended for use by merchants and business
partners that want to develop highly customized, on-line stores that can
accommodate a world of shoppers while individually serving each customer.
The system has been designed to showcase a business' product line, allow
immediate purchases with instant payments through secured credit card
transactions and integrate with a merchant's existing business systems.
Merchandisers will benefit from increased sales due to new channels,
faster market response and personalized marketing -- all leading towards
greater customer brand loyalty. Additionally, companies will experience
reduced costs due to lower telecommunications, staffing, printing and
mailing expenses than those associated with a print catalog.

L.L. Bean, Inc. of Freeport, Maine, will be the first catalog retailer to
host its electronic catalog on the IBM Net.Commerce system. L.L. Bean is
known worldwide for selling high quality outdoor recreational equipment
and apparel by catalog, and launched a highly successful Web site in
September 1995 (http://www.llbean.com). Noted for its outstanding customer
service reputation, L.L. Bean is eager to take the next step in making
home shopping even more convenient for customers.

L.L. Bean will have its well-known outdoor products available for customers
to purchase over the Internet in the third quarter of 1996. "We are eager
to expand the capability of our existing Web site to take customer orders
on-line," said Christopher McCormick, senior vice president of advertising
and direct marketing, L.L. Bean. "We are particularly pleased to work with
IBM to present this option to our customers. We are confident that the
Net.Commerce system will allow L.L. Bean to serve its customers in the
most efficient way possible and advance our goal of providing superior
communications to the marketplace."

In addition to Net.Commerce, IBM previewed its Interactive Marketing
Service at the show. This electronic commerce service offers businesses
the ability to merchandise their products over the Internet using
sophisticated software and database technology. Merchants will be able to
get "up and running" immediately without having to invest in the
infrastructure necessary to build their own electronic catalog --
hardware, software, technical support and network access. Additionally,
merchants will benefit from IBM's ongoing investment in advanced
electronic commerce technology.

In the near future, this service will make it possible for people to
purchase official Olympic Games merchandise over the Internet. The Atlanta
Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) Olympic Merchandising Catalog
(http://www.atlanta.olympic.org/acog/products/d-products.html) will be
hosted by IBM through this forthcoming marketing service, clearly
demonstrating how IBM can help retailers build electronic catalogs.

IBM's Interactive Marketing Service is a leading-edge electronic commerce
service which provides merchants with the ability to control catalog
content, design and layout. Merchants can establish a personal
relationship with their customers -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week --
using powerful search and navigation tools, intelligent agents and data
mining technology. This service will be featured in a series of upcoming
IBM Internet offerings for businesses in health care, media and other
industries.

IBM is also working with several major retailers to provide a
full-function, creative shopping environment which will be announced later
this spring. One of the major retailers currently developing a site for
this new shopping environment is Express, the first specialty women's
apparel business to launch a Web site (http://www.express.style.com).

"IBM's approach is the most creative we've seen," said Les Duncan, vice
president, Express. "We have already derived a business benefit from our
current Web site through increased traffic in our stores and improved
response to our promotions. People who register on our Web site are asking
when they will be able to buy on-line. We're eager to meet this demand,
working in conjunction with the leader in Internet technology, IBM."

IBM also demonstrated an early version of a secure payment system -- a set
of technologies that implements the Secure Electronic Transactions (SET)
protocol, an open standard which IBM has been working closely with Visa
International Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. to develop. The demo
showed how a consumer could safely purchase merchandise through the use of
a browser, such as Netscape Navigator**, connected to the IBM Net.Commerce
system.

"The Internet has the potential to provide businesses and consumers with a
truly interactive marketplace in which products, services and information
can be conveniently exchanged," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, general
manager, IBM Internet Division. " Merchants will be able to reach a wider
audience, thus expanding their customer base. Consumers will benefit from
the ability to easily search for just the right item without having to
drive from store to store, wait in long lines or be disappointed by their
choice being out of stock or in the wrong color."

The IBM Net.Commerce system is available today on a limited basis; the
system will become fully available in the third quarter of 1996. IBM will
be working with value-added remarketers, solution developers, system
integrators, network integrators and services providers on the delivery of
end-to-end electronic commerce solutions utilizing the Net.Commerce
system. Partners interested in becoming an early customer should visit the
Net.Commerce Web site (http://net.commerce.ibm.com).

IBM Net.Commerce Benefits

* Ability to quickly and easily create and maintain a virtual storefront:
The IBM Net.Commerce system provides easy-to-use, Web-based Java** tools
for administration, new content creation and the leveraging of existing
Web pages. With these tools, merchants can create customized templates for
showcasing their product lines as well as for searches, "shopping carts"
and order forms. Merchant Web pages will then be generated dynamically
from the templates and populated from powerful product databases, ensuring
the latest product information -- sales, discounts, etc. -- will be
immediately reflected to the consumer. Additionally, tools such as IBM
CICS*/WWW Connection and IBM DB2*/WWW Connection will make it easy for
customers to integrate existing business processes such as accounting and
inventory tracking into this new sales channel.

* Easy-to-use, interactive experience for the shopper: The Net.Commerce
system will offer consumers easy access to multimedia product information
through navigation and multi-level searches. A consumer will select a
product for purchase and place it into a shopping cart that is
"remembered" if he or she wishes to shop at a later time. A custom order
form will then be presented to the consumer with the shipping cost and
sales tax calculated (in the U.S. and Canada). The consumer will then
securely enter his or her credit card information for immediate payment.

* Micromarketing and market research: The IBM Net.Commerce system will aid
customer research and "micromarketing," or marketing to the individual.
Merchants will be able to compile marketing statistics and generate
customized reports from usage data and logs. Information such as pages
visited, items purchased and searches performed will be tracked by the
Net.Commerce system. Additionally, IBM has developed a powerful
intelligent agent technology which can "remember" a customer profile and
past buying preferences. It will also analyze consumer buying patterns,
such as which consumer or group of consumers like red shirts, order extra
large, and so on. As a result of this analysis, merchants will be able to
deliver highly customized content that fits specific profiles -- providing
a "personalized shopping experience."

Shopping Securely on the Internet

While the IBM Net.Commerce system is available on a limited basis, it will
provide security features for electronic commerce. When IBM's secure
payment system is integrated into the Net.Commerce system it will utilize
the SET protocol -- an open, multiplatform security standard which allows
consumers, merchants and credit card companies to verify identities and
approve account information over the Internet. The secure payment system
is being demonstrated at Internet World.

Through the use of "certificates," this technology will allow an
independent third party to assign digital IDs to both consumers and
merchants so that each may authenticate the person or company they are
dealing with.

"IBM's secure payment system will provide end-to-end security for three
party transactions over the Internet," said Mark Greene, vice president of
electronic commerce for the IBM Internet Division. "Consumers, merchants
and credit companies will all benefit from the widespread use of the
three-party payment protocol supported by SET."

MasterCard and Visa expect that banks will be able to offer secure bank
card services via the Internet using the SET protocol to their cardholders
in the fourth quarter of 1996. Participants in this effort with MasterCard
and Visa are: GTE, IBM, Microsoft, Netscape Communications Corp., SAIC,
Terisa Systems and Verisign.

Net.Commerce Specifications

Net.Commerce is being launched initially on IBM AIX* and Microsoft Windows
NT** platforms, with Sun Solaris** and IBM OS/2* support to follow later
this year. IBM is one of the first major vendors to offer a Windows
NT-based merchant server. Additionally, the IBM Net.Commerce system will
utilize and be bundled with two of the recently announced IBM Software
Servers* -- the Internet Connection* Server and the Database Server. The
Net.Commerce system will be the first of many Internet applications that
support the IBM Software Servers (http://www.software.ibm.com).

IBM's Database Server offers IBM's powerful, reliable, relational database
DB2*. Additionally IBM is committed to supporting open standards for
connecting to other third party databases.

IBM's Internet Connection Server provides secure links between an on-line
store and a merchant's customers.

The Net.Commerce system will offer browser recognition, classification and
statistics logging. Adaptive recognition of SSL supporting browsers will
also be featured.

The system will also provide a flexible and configurable interface to the
taxation and shipping charge calculation systems required by a merchant.
The Net.Commerce system will support the TAXWARE Sales Tax System for
calculating and supplying accurate tax rates in the U.S. and Canada.

"Accurate, secure, flexible and seamless describe the combination of the
IBM Net.Commerce system and TAXWARE's Internet Sales Tax System," said Dan
Sullivan, CEO, Taxware International, Inc. "TAXWARE brings a rigorous
sales tax calculation and reporting interface to the Net.Commerce system.
IBM's international scope is a great fit for our WORLDTAX multinational
value added tax system which we plan to unveil this summer."

The following are supported by the IBM Net.Commerce system:

* HyperText markup Language (HTML)
* Netscape Application Programming Interface (NSAPI) and
  Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI),
  allowing use with the Netscape Commerce Server or the Microsoft
  Internet Server
* Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
* HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
* Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
* Java

Net.Commerce support for forthcoming standards include:

* Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
* Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)
* Joint Electronic Payments Initiative (JEPI)

IBM

IBM has been a pioneer in the development of the Internet. It designed
special hardware and software, and provided operations support for key
networks that make up today's Internet, including the Internet's primary
backbone, the NSFnet. IBM also helped form Advanced Network & Services
(ANS), the organization which had been responsible for managing and
servicing the NSFnet from its inception until the beginning of 1995.

IBM offers hardware, software, consulting and services to help customers
take advantage of the potential of the Internet. Whether addressing an
individual need or creating a total enterprise solution, IBM provides the
expertise required to plan, design, implement and operate an Internet
solution for businesses.

IBM customers can run their electronic commerce business over the IBM
Global Network, one of the world's largest secure data networks, which
provides Internet access offered in over 45 countries. It offers merchants
security, reliability, technical support and a Help Desk staffed 24 hours
a day, seven days a week.

To learn more about IBM's Internet activities, visit the IBM Internet home
page at: http://www.internet.ibm.com or the IBM Corporation home page at
http://www.ibm.com.

*** The URL for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) Olympic
Ticket Server is http://sales.atlanta.olympic.org. New tickets have just
been released by ACOG; attendees at the show can purchase tickets at IBM's
booth #1207 or anywhere over the Internet.

Please Note: Questions about the content or currency of this press release
should be directed to your local IBM representative.
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners!
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email:   rbakerpc@aol.com   --or--   rbakerpc@delphi.com
 =========================================================
