Users get infinitely customized views of their supply chains and the processes involved. With traditional technology, we'd have to take the time, trouble and expense of hard-wiring everyone to everybody else. This is a huge constraint for our competitors, and our Bowstreet-based technology is a strong differentiator for The Thread. Bowstreet, the foundation for the entire supply chain, ultimately lets The Thread create and maintain thousands of customized relationships online. These technologies come together in the Bowstreet Business Web Factory, an XML infrastructure platform for publishing, finding, combining, managing and deploying any and all web services.
Web services are discrete XML-based business processes.
Bowstreet's Business Web Factory lets non-technical business people create, combine and customize them simply by pointing and clicking. The Thread, which goes live in late 2000, will extend partici-pating companies' market reach while reducing their risk and transaction costs. It will also reduce participating companies' reliance on spreadsheets, e-mail, faxes, and phone calls. The Thread will continuously track and report performance on all partners and processes using the service. The Thread will present apparel industry professionals with customized web pages bearing collections of web services from multiple partners.