Baan continues shift to ebusiness with Web based customer service portal

Baan has launched an online customer support Web portal, which is intended to deliver better quality services to users "at the speed of 'e'".

The move is part of an attempt by the enterprise resource planning (Erp) application supplier to morph into an ebusiness vendor, providing customers with applications that are "e enabled, end to end".

Baan.agility, which was unveiled at the firm's Baanworld 99 customer and partner conference in Vienna this week, is intended to enable customers to collaborate and share experiences and knowledge, and access online advice from consultants.

Andrew Nash, Baan's executive vice president of services, said: "We're taking everything we possibly can and putting it out to the customer at the lowest price point. And where possible at no cost."

He added: "In order to collaborate you need to have a solid infrastructure. The business to business model isn't like the business to consumer model where you build a Web site, put up a catalogue and off you go. We're basically acting as the collector and distributor of the knowledge through the portal."

The Baan.agility umbrella incorporates many existing services such as virtual training courses, but adds other elements such as an intellectual property database detailing the experiences of Baan consultants and staff.

Another addition is "Agility.optimize," which enables customers to run diagnostics to sort out performance problems.

Baan.agility will be rolled out to customers, partners and employees from the fourth quarter of this year through to the second quarter of 2000.

Other Baanworld announcements included the Openworld Integration Framework, which is XML based and intended to help customers integrate their back end ERP applications with the Internet.