Zelerate Kicks Off Open Source E-Commerce Education Program With Depaul University and Indiana University

Business Wire, Nov 20, 2000

Business Editors

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 20, 2000

Partners in Education Network (PEN) Program To Incorporate

Zelerate Software in Higher Education Curriculum

Zelerate, Inc., the leading provider of open source e-commerce applications, today unveiled its Partners in Education Program (PEN) by announcing that DePaul University and Indiana University will offer e-commerce classes featuring the Zelerate AllCommerce(TM) application in Spring 2001. Designed to satisfy increasing demand for specialized e-commerce training, these classes will be offered by DePaul's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and IU's Kelley School of Business.

"Thousands of institutions worldwide are just beginning to outline programs to provide the skills necessary to compete in the New Economy," said Bonnie Crater, president and CEO of Zelerate, Inc. "We are very enthusiastic about being able to contribute to studies that examine best practices in e-commerce."

"Business school students are usually not exposed to open source software as part of a typical MBA curriculum," said Ramesh Venkataraman, assistant professor at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. "Through the use of the AllCommerce software in my class I will be able to provide students the opportunity to judge the pros and cons of business application software developed using the open source model."

"Because Zelerate offers its software at no charge, my students will be able to easily modify a full-scale commercial application," said Matt Versaggi, adjunct professor and founder of the e-commerce curriculum at DePaul's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. "I look forward to incorporating the software into my coursework this coming Spring."

According to Zelerate, the company also plans to establish partnerships other educational institutions in the near future.

Targeted audiences of the PEN program include:

-- Higher educational institutions

-- Professors

-- Students

-- University career services departments

-- Career services businesses

-- Value-added resellers

-- Software and consulting companies with educational clients

Zelerate's freely available and WAP-enabled software, which includes the core set of extensible modules required by major Internet business models, includes end-user interfaces to provide marketing managers with the ability to easily customize online pricing, inventory and ordering information. To maximize use of the platform-independent software, Zelerate provides a range of professional and technical services for the installation, customization and ongoing support of commercial Web sites. Additional Zelerate services include warehouse integration, project management, architecture, pre-launch hosting and customized security.

Zelerate plans to introduce a fully open-sourced and Web-based warehouse management system in December of this year to manage fulfillment needs such as purchase orders and delivery options. Other new modules will include features for multiple shipping options, coupons, gift certificates, multiple currency support and multi-language store templates.

About Zelerate, Inc.

Zelerate, Inc., (formerly OpenSales, Inc.) is the leading provider of open source e-commerce applications. The San Mateo-based company is the developer of Zelerate AllCommerce(TM), a suite of freely available and platform-independent software applications that support all key Internet business models and can process thousands of Web transactions per second on inexpensive clusters of systems. For rapid development, Zelerate offers a range of installation, customization and support services. Zelerate is an idealab! company.

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