The companies in this powerful position had the ability to persuade their trading partners to participate in their EDI programs. These programs gain greater efficiencies as partner participation reaches closer to 100 percent. Even successful EDI programs with an 80 percent reach still require much human interaction to conduct business with the remaining partners and customers. The Internet has enabled companies of all sizes to compete in the global economy. Web EDI users need only a browser and an Internet connection to take advantage of the solution.
Many options are now available utilizing web forms to help increase partner involvement.
Typically, small partners pay a monthly fee to send and receive web data, and the EDI hubs pay the resulting VAN charges. Introduction to Netscape TradingXpert Netscape TradingXpert, a component of the CommerceXpert product family, is used to extend the functions of ECXpert to create web based e-commerce applications. Using TradingXpert together with ECXpert, companies can extend their trading networks to reach smaller and medium-sized trading partners. With TradingXpert, a company that has deployed ECXpert can create web forms that allow trading partners to view and create business documents with through an easy to use forms interface. TradingXpert is designed using ECXpert extensions, the Netscape Application Server, and a highly customizable mailboxing application.