Digex and Great Plains Forge Partnership To Offer Web-Enabled Business Management Solutions - Company Business and Marketing

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Sept 13, 1999

In a move to capture a bigger piece of the emerging application hosting market, Digex, Incorporated Wednesday announced a partnership with Great Plains to offer mid-sized companies turnkey, Web-enabled business management solutions.

Under the partnership, Digex will package Great Plains' solution suite -- Great Plains eEnterprise -- with its next generation of Web and application hosting services -- Digex SmartServices(SM) Version 3.0 -- to offer mid-sized companies a complete outsourced solution for their business management systems.

Digex also is certified to work with Great Plains' VAR channel to serve the growing number of companies that want the benefits of a high-powered Web-based business management system, but lack the skilled technical personnel, time, and resources that are required to deploy and manage these complex solutions.

"A growing number of companies today want to Web-enable their core business processes -- particularly financial management applications -- and take advantage of the efficiencies that the Internet provides," said Andy Hunn, director of integrated business solutions for Digex. "As a result, Digex is moving quickly into the emerging application hosting space to integrate our core managed hosting services into powerful business solutions for applications, including e-commerce, finance and accounting, human resources, supply chain management, and sales force automation and reporting. Our partnership with Great Plains is the latest milestone in that strategy."

In January 1999, Digex announced a partnership with Pandesic LLC to offer Web-enabled core business processes that include order entry, order processing, fulfillment, shipping, and inventory management functions.

Commenting on the new partnership, Great Plains ASP Services General Manager Jim Traynor said, "We've worked hard to make this one of the most effective and high-powered solutions on the market today. Engineers from Great Plains and Digex worked tirelessly to develop the optimal platform for our software. For customers, this due diligence translates into faster implementations and greater operating efficiencies."

Backed by Digex's guarantee for maximum solution availability, robust security, and seamless scalability, the Digex/Great Plains e-business solutions will include:

* Options for an e-commerce application with shopping cart functionality

* Application software for 10 or more concurrent users

* Dedicated server configurations

* Optimized implementations of Microsoft Windows NT Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Site Server

* Internet connectivity

* Support for all Great Plains' servers by a dedicated Digex/GreatPlains support team

* 24 x 7 x 365 proactive security, monitoring, reporting, administration, and backup by Digex

* Options for managed firewalls and load balancing

* Predictable user fees for software and hosting services

"As a strategic partner to both Digex and Great Plains, we're excited to see our products put to work in these powerful solutions," said Mark Chestnut, director, Network Solutions Group, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news). "Digex's unmatched expertise in managing complex Web sites and business applications combined with Great Plains' industry-leading financial management software deliver a fully integrated solution that is highly secure, scalable, and reliable."

Hunn concluded, "Mid-sized companies today need all the advantages of a robust, end-to-end business management solution. Until now, the significant time and expense to hire highly skilled technical staff and deploy state-of- the-art systems have been roadblocks. Using the Digex/Great Plains e-business solution, companies can reap the benefits of a sophisticated system -- at a lower investment cost -- freeing them to focus their time and resources on managing their businesses."

Digex is a leading provider of Web and application hosting services for some of the world's leading companies that rely on the Internet as a critical business tool. Digex also offers value-added enterprise and professional services, including performance and security testing, monitoring, reporting and networking services. Digex customers, from Fortune 2000 corporations to Internet-based businesses, leverage Digex's services to deploy secure, scalable, high performance business solutions, including electronic retailing, online banking, online procurement and customer self-service applications. Digex, Incorporated is a subsidiary of Intermedia Communications Inc. Additional information on Digex is available at http://www.digex.com.

Great Plains provides fully integrated front office/back office solutions for the midmarket. These include financial, distribution, enterprise reporting, project accounting, electronic commerce, human resources and payroll, manufacturing, sales and marketing management, and customer service and support. Great Plains' solutions are sold and implemented by a unique worldwide network of independent partner organizations that share the company's commitment to lasting customer relationships. Named for the third time to the "Top 100 Companies to Work for in America" list, Great Plains has more than 1,000 team members worldwide. More information about Great Plains can be found at www.greatplains.com.