[Toronto, CANADA] SoftQuad
Software has made a strategic technology partnership with
ec-Content, an e-catalog content
solution provider for B2B e-marketplaces, including a network of
40,000 suppliers and subscription customers.
The partnership will combine SoftQuad MarketAgility, a supply side
e-catalog solution, with ec-Content’s ability to create enhanced
catalog content, allowing suppliers to deliver customer-specific
catalogs to e-markets quickly and efficiently.
The partners say that suppliers who want to effectively participate
in e-marketplaces must overcome the challenges involved in creating,
updating and delivering content rich catalogs with buyer-specific
pricing information to multiple e-marketplaces.
This requires collecting product and pricing information from
enterprise systems, adding up-to-date product descriptions and
graphics from manufacturers, and delivering each e-catalog in the XML
format required by each e-marketplace.
ec-Content maintains a base of product information on over five
million individual items from thousands of manufacturers, and
provides management and maintenance services to expand and update
this information for marketplaces and suppliers.
The combination of MarketAgility and ec-Content is expected provide
suppliers with an integrated solution to rapidly create
buyer-specific catalogs, normalize the data for consistency, enrich it with
manufacturer information, and distribute it to e-markets.
For suppliers, this enables them to bring their customized e-catalogs
online quickly. For e-marketplace users, this ensures a rich buying
experience by enabling them to quickly and efficiently find the
products they need with accurate product and pricing information.
“The partnership of ec-Content and SoftQuad will give suppliers the
ability to quickly join and effectively compete in e-marketplaces,”
said Roberto Drassinower, president and chief executive officer of
SoftQuad.
“Our partnership with SoftQuad will drastically reduce a supplier’s
time to market, while allowing them to maintain control over the
accuracy and integrity of their e-catalog data,” said Trey Simonton,
executive vice president of business development at ec-Content.