enCommerce, Inc., a leading California-based
supplier of secure enterprise portal management solutions, last week
announced the establishment of enCommerce Japan as its first international
subsidiary.
Tokyo-based enCommerce Japan will provide technical support services for the
parent company’s established Japanese customer base as well as work on
increasing sales in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region.
Heading enCommerce Japan as vice president and general manager is Yutaka
Saito, previously CEO of Sirius, Mitsubishi’s enterprise computing software
and systems integration subsidiary.
“enCommerce has a proven track record for delivering world-class solutions
to the Japanese market,” said Saito.
“Launching enCommerce Japan presents a tremendous opportunity to continue
evangelizing our vision of global e-business that surpasses current
standards for Internet-scalability, security, and reliability.”
GetAccess, the company’s flagship product, is a comprehensive,
Internet-scale Web access management solution that accelerates the
development and deployment of secure electronic business portals through
plug-in authentication, authorization, and administration of access to
corporate networks.
enCommerce has been selling a Japanese version of getAccess, 2.0J, through
local partners since 1997. A new version, getAccess 3.0J, is scheduled to
ship this summer.
From current Japanese annual revenues of about 300 million yen (US$2.5
million), enCommerce hopes that the efforts of its new subsidiary and
release of getAccess 3.0J will propel Japan-based sales to 4 billion yen
(US$33.3 million) by 2002.
The launch of enCommerce Japan builds on an established product and customer
base, strategic distribution partnerships, and key investment relationships
in Japan.
Since its founding in 1997, enCommerce has cultivated strong ties with the
Japanese business community and attracted support from investors such as
EC-One, Inc., Mitsubishi Corp., and Nippon Investment & Finance.
The company has strategic distribution agreements with Osaka Gas Information
Research Institute (OGIS-RI), the systems integration subsidiary of Japan’s
second largest gas company, and Mitsubishi Corp. Current customers include
Asahi Chemical, JapanNet, Kawasaki, Marubeni, Mitsubishi, NTT, and OGIS-RI.
“We have served some of the largest global enterprises in Japan — leaders
in the adoption of next-generation e-business solutions,” said Alberto
Yepez, chairman and CEO of enCommerce.
“We are proud to establish a permanent base of operations to continue to
meet their needs for secure, multinational, Internet-scale platforms for
conducting e-commerce around the world.”
In April, enCommerce announced that Yazaki Parts, the world’s largest
manufacturer and reseller of automotive parts and electronic instruments,
has selected getAccess for its new Internet-based supplier portal that
connects Yazaki divisions and overseas offices with hundreds of third-party
suppliers.
Yazaki’s supplier portal, Japan’s first large-scale, 100% Enterprise Java
Beans-compliant enterprise information system, was developed by enCommerce
partner EC-One.
“getAccess provides an integral component to our portal by recognizing
various users’ roles within the Yazaki enterprise, and providing a secure
yet easily accessible portal to the purchasing data that each user is
authorized to see,” said Eihiro Saishu, senior vice president and CTO of
EC-One.
