Avnet Gets On the Fastrac

Electronic News, Sept 4, 2000 by Marie Eve Demers

Avnet Applied Computing Group (AAC), Tempe, Ariz., an operating group of Avnet Inc., launched Avnet Fastrac, a Web portal designed to give AAC's OEM customers a set of online tools that puts information right at their fingertips. Avnet Fastrac is a productivity suite for engineers that brings product and design information, an interactive engineering forum, real-time order status, and part search capabilities onto a single, secure Web site. "AAC designed Avnet Fastrac based solely on the unique needs and work patterns of the applied computing design community,"? said Ed Kamins, AAC president. Before Avnet Fastrac, Kamins added, designers were forced to search different vendor sites for end-of-life information and product specs, then hop to another site to search for necessary parts before placing a phone call to determine the status of an order or speak with an integration engineer. In order to keep information up to date, Avnet Fastrac regularly sweeps supplier sites for the most recent product specs, then downloads local copies for reference. That information is coupled with a part search tool that can find any component on the AAC supplier line card, even if only a portion of the part number is known.

FairMarket's New CEO

FairMarket Inc., Woburn, Mass., has announced that Eileen Rudden, 24-year industry veteran and former Lotus Development Corp. executive, will join the company as president and chief executive officer on Sept. 11. Rudden succeeds Scott Randall, FairMarket founder, who will become chaiman of the board of directors. In her role as president and CEO, Rudden will lead all aspects of the company from overall strategy to day-to-day operations. Additionally, Rudden has been elected a director of the company, effective Sept. 11, by a unanimous vote of the board of directors. Before joining FairMarket, Rudden had a highly successful career at Lotus that spanned 14 years. She held many leadership positions during her tenure that directly influenced revenue growth and created market leadership for Lotus.

ChipCenter Alerts Engineers

ChipCenter LLC, New York, N.Y., has added a branded version of PCNalert to notify users of time-critical product change and obsolescence information concerning electronic components. PCNalert is a product of SupplyEdge Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., a provider of action triggering supply chain information services. Since Aug. 21, registered ChipCenter users have been provided with a hyperlink to PCNalert's Web site. Free service will be offered for the 14 most recent alerts to any product that they enter.

Chip Supply to Distribute Xicor Inc. Products

Chip Supply Inc., a semiconductor die distributor and die processor, and Xicor Inc., a company that designs, develops, manufactures and sells nonvolatile in-the-system programmable products, recently signed an agreement authorizing Chip Supply to distribute Xicor products in die and wafer form on a worldwide basis. Chip Supply joins Xicor's existing family of distributors, which include Avnet, Wyle, Pioneer, Memec and Tokyo Electron.