By Winston Chai
Friday, September 17 2004 05:11 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/0,39042972,39194068,00.htm

SINGAPORE--RosettaNet is hoping to expand its push for a universal e-business language to smaller companies by slashing the costs of standards adoption.

The consortium, which focuses on developing standards for electronic commerce, is now looking for ways to make it easier and cheaper for businesses to build a common platform to automate the exchange of data like purchase and delivery orders, inventory levels and other business information.

This effort will be spearheaded by RosettaNet's first architectural design and research facility outside the United States, which was officially unveiled here yesterday.

The S$2.4 million (US$1.4 million) so-called "Architecture Center of Excellence" was set in partnership with Nanyang Polytechnic and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), along with hardware and software sponsorship from 10 other RosettaNet members such as Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco Systems and IBM.

"Right now, the cost of adopting RossettaNet standards is not low. In the Singapore context, it costs about S$200,000 to S$300,000 (US$118,000 to US$177,000). For a multinational, that's probably not much but for SMBs (small and midsize businesses), that's a lot of money," said Poon Hong Yuen, IDA's deputy director for the manufacturing and services industry group.

"The cost is really due to the requisite hardware, software and professional IT services needed to implement these standards," he explained, adding that the center aims to make use of technologies like Web services to lower the investments needed to embrace RosettaNet's e-commerce blueprints.

Besides lowering the adoption costs for SMBs, the new facility will also conduct research into other areas. These include studies on how to incorporate radio-frequency tracking technology into existing RosettaNet standards, as well as the development of e-payment and e-logistics models, added Paul Tearnen, RosettaNet's vice president of standards management.

Such research is clearly line with the Singapore's government's technology focus, according to Tan Ching Yee, IDA's CEO. In the past year, local authorities have invested heavily in a slew of IT initiatives in a bid to boost the nation's appeal as a regional logistics, manufacturing and transportation hub.

In April this year, IDA signaled its strong backing for RosettaNet standards with an ambitious plan to build 10 electronic supply chains to better link high-tech manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Maxtor with their numerous suppliers.

In the following months, IDA further committed to a S$10 million (US$5.9 million) effort to promote the adoption of radio frequency identification technology, as well as a S$50 million (US$29 million) plan to develop a Web-based system to cut down paperwork in the logistics and transportation sectors.