News Briefs

AT&T and BT alliance Concert, has announced an agreement with Staffware to develop e-business systems for its global customers. The announcement is expected to be the first of a number of partnerships for Concert to augment its IP portfolio. The alliance will build e-business systems designed to improve customer business performance by re-engineering and automating their trade processes.

WRQ has announced the release of version 3 of Reflection for the web, designed to provide web-based host access across enterprises and beyond corporate firewalls. The Java-based environment features component-based architecture, allowing users to download the functionality that they require.

The upgrade extends data stored on the mainframe from AS/400, HP, Unix and OpenVMS to business partners and remote employees. It also features integrated security and automatic green screen to GUI tools.

Hitachi has launched its Smart Commerce project which consists of three tiers providing different systems. Smart Business, Smart Services and Smart Centre will be rolling out across European telecoms, finance, retail, distribution and public sectors. The products will include electronic transaction systems, smart card implementations, remote data access and CRM tools, which can all be integrated into back-end infrastructures.

Storage systems group Quantum has announced the industry's first 120 GB Raid-capable workgroup file server, with a price tag of less than £1,885.

The Snap server 4000 is a rack mountable Network Attched Storage (NAS) product. The server is designed for higher-end networking needs such as global corporations, ISPs and ASPs. It is targeted as a more cost effective alternative to an NT server. It incorporates cross platform file sharing support, security integration and remote administration features.

Oracle, Carrefour and Sears last week created a business to business e-commerce alliance dubbed GlobalNetXchange. The participants hope to set a new global standard for business-to-business trading and collaboration in retail supply chains.