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NCR Lays Out Building Blocks for Internet-based Commerce; Announces Offerings to Create Reliable Intranets/Extranets

Offerings Include Internet-Ready Servers, Web-enabled Data Warehousing and Transaction Processing Solutions, and Internet Services

DAYTON, OH (April 28, 1997) - Leveraging its expertise in the transaction-intensive financial, retail and communications industries, NCR today announced new offerings to help customers build reliable corporate intranets and extranets that serve as foundations for Internet-based Electronic Commerce.

The Internet Electronic Commerce (IEC) offerings are enhancements to NCR's two strategic areas of focus - Scalable Data Warehousing that provides decision-support computing and High Availability Transaction Processing for real-time, reliable information transactions. These internet/extranet offerings bring high levels of availability, reliability and price performance to critical applications that run businesses. For example, NCR's cluster technology for Windows NT enables customers to operate web sites 24 hours a day.

"NCR's high availability technology coupled with Netscape Enterprise Server software provide not only the linkages between people and information, but also the underpinnings of mission critical applications to run businesses," said Netscape Communications Corporation's president and CEO Jim Barksdale. "As a valuable OEM and Netscape Global Systems Integration partner, NCR's expertise in data warehousing and transaction computing combined with Netscape software will offer strong corporate enterprise solutions for customers."

Based on NCR's scalable WorldMark servers, the IEC integrated offers include:

  • NCR Intranet Access Server for entry-level intranet deployment and for high performance delivery and management of Web site information.
  • NCR High Availability Web Cluster Servers for NT for businesses running critical applications requiring zero down time. This solution is based on clustered web servers with fail-over and recovery software, centralized management and unique load-leveling capabilities for clusters of NCR and non-NCR Web servers.
  • NCR Web-enabled Data Warehouse solutions that make information in corporate warehouses accessible to more people - within a company, as well as to its customers, suppliers and business partners. Using Java or CGI, users can gain high-performance access - across the Internet/intranets - to business-critical information residing in NCR's Teradata relational database or merchant databases.

    To further extend and enhance data warehouse performance, NCR is also making available NCR WebMining, which provides mining tools to spot trends, analyze promotions and other decision-support analyses from information in the data warehouse that includes user interactions and transactions on the Internet.

  • NCR Web Transaction Broker that extends customers' current transaction systems to deliver secure transactions via the Internet. Central to this solution is NCR's TOP END enterprise middleware, which automatically manages and distributes service requests over the enterprise in a secure manner for consistent, quick transaction response times.

"Businesses are struggling to find ways to make money using Web technologies," said Lars Nyberg, NCR chairman and CEO. "Our customers tell us they do not want to create new infrastructures or business processes, but rather use the Internet to extend processes that are in place to maximize their business advantage. This is what distinguishes NCR's approach to building Internet-based Electronic Commerce solutions - providing real, live solutions in concert with strategic partners like Netscape, who are market leaders."

Among the companies benefiting from NCR's approach to Internet solutions are: AT&T; First Chicago/Mercantile Services Bank; Reuters, the global news and real-time information provider; Tower Records; Hong Kong Police; Belgacom, the national telecommunications operator in Belgium; Travel Unie International, a major travel agency and tour operator in the Netherlands; Union Pacific Railroad and Seibu department store in Japan.

Building Industry Solutions

Using NCR's highly available IEC offerings as a foundation, NCR is working with customers to develop industry-specific solutions. In retail, for example, several of the solutions that NCR is developing for customers include web-enabled data warehouses, supply-chain electronic purchasing, information delivery to store systems, and interactive, self-service shopping.

Also, the Electronic Commerce Research Lab at NCR's Human Interface Technology Center in Atlanta is developing solutions for virtual retailing, which will help provide insight on electronic shoppers.

Based on the Financial Systems Group's retail banking Internet architecture, NCR will provide Web-enabled data warehouses, Internet access for self-service kiosks, Web Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), and support for electronic payment methods such as Mondex, Visa, and Proton. This architecture also encompasses home banking, branch banking, and Call Center operations.

And in the communications industry, NCR's offerings include Internet access to phone bills and customer care information; Internet kiosks to enhance product sales or service delivery; and web mining/data warehousing for Internet Commerce Service Providers.

Strategic Partnerships for Best-of-Breed Technologies

"NCR will continue to assemble partners that represent the best-of-breed Internet technologies to help our customers extend their infrastructures and applications," said Mark Hurd, vice president of Marketing for NCR's Computer Systems Group. "The Internet provides new value to current applications and solutions which means our customers can take advantage of the Internet immediately. They don't need to wait for new `killer' applications in order to capitalize on the commerce benefits of the Internet."

NCR's partners include Netscape Communications Corp., Microsoft, Computer Associates, Cisco Systems, EMC Corp., PLATINUM technology, inc., Information Advantage, Inc., and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

`Internet-ready' Servers with Built-in Security

NCR also announced today that all NCR WorldMark servers for both Windows NT and UNIX MP-RAS are `Internet ready' with pre-loaded industry-leading software. NCR WorldMark servers - which can scale from one to thousands of Intel processors - are delivered to customers bundled with Netscape FastTrack Server and Netscape Navigator (UNIX or Windows NT) or with Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) software for Windows NT. In addition, for Windows NT servers, a dormant bundle of Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s Check PointTM FireWall-1TM security software is provided. (A software key is provided to those customers who want to activate Check Point FireWall-1.)

Enterprise Security and Management

In addition to ensuring reliable network transactions with Check Point FireWall-1 software and Cisco router-based security, NCR offers security at the system and application levels, as well as services to identify, develop and implement security policies for protecting business assets. Based on Computer Associates' Unicenter TNG enterprise management solution, NCR also provides remote monitoring and management of Web servers, including security and storage management.

NCR Electronic Markets Services: New Suite of Services for IEC

With 20,000 services employees around the globe, NCR also announced today that it has expanded its services expertise with fully certified consultants to deliver an integrated services offering to address the challenges that customers face in the business-to-business or business-to-consumer electronic commerce environment.

The new NCR Electronic Markets Services include: Internet Discovery; Internet Solutions Design; Internet Implementation; and Internet Audit & Refresh. These modules help customers align their use of Internet technology to achieve key business objectives; design and implement custom solutions that derive maximum business benefit from Internet technology; and audit existing Web server infrastructures to improve usability and performance.

NCR recently became the first Netscape OEM to become a Netscape Global Systems Integration partner. NCR consultants and systems engineers have been trained by Netscape to become certified on Netscape's complete product line of client and server software. Also, NCR will establish several "Centers of Expertise" (COE) throughout the world, applying its systems integration capabilities to custom solutions using Netscape software.

About NCR

NCR (NYSE:NCR) is the leader in delivering commercial open computer systems for transaction processing and decision-support solutions to customers in all industries, with market-share leadership in communications, retail and finance. The company, with headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, has 38,000 employees. NCR solutions help improve businesses by turning customer information into results, protecting existing information technology investments, reducing risks and ensuring success. More information about NCR can be found at: http://www.ncr.com

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