On the issue of biased emails, we all have a bias from our experience. I think
that the point is not that Art is expressing an opinion (which is supported by
many in the EDI-L list on the quality of the SoftShare product) but sending
pricing information in the email. The point is that if you mention pricing then
put a header saying that Sales information is being sent. I don't have a
problem with folks promoting their products (although as most of the folks here
are involved in EDI, why not send a sales/pricing pitch privately and send the
rest of the EDI-L the opinion).
Mike
Art Douglas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Y'all can get Softshare ECS for $6500 plus 20% annual maintenance. It
includes AS1, AS2, AS3, FTP, SMTP, POP3, file system, etc., for the purchase
price. There is no incremental charge for additional trading partners.
AS2 may not be inexpensive if you insist on purchasing the big names, but if
you want something that simply works, this is one way to do it without
breaking the bank.
Art Douglas
Chief Consultant
Blackwater Network
877-464-8915
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
w_cohen99
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 12:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [EDI-L] Re: Reducing/eliminating our EDI VAN
Well, we are a grocery wholesaler and, as such, are customers of the
trading partners (vendors).
We have been operating for over 10 years using Easylink and have
always connected to our trading partners via the VAN. None of our
trading partners have ever said to us we must go to AS2 (like
Walmart did).
We are looking to cut down on monthly/yearly costs and if AS2 might
allow us to do that then I need to do further investigation. It
might turn out that AS2 is not going to save us any money, whether
short or long term.
I am currently attempting to poll our top 5 trading partners (EDI
volume) to see if they are EDI-capable and are willing to
communicate directly with us via AS2.
I will be writing up an ROI analysis on this and if it is determined
that our top 5 trading partners can do AS2 and they combined cut out
80% of our VAN traffic then this would be an achievable investment
for us.
I've only checked with one other company who happens to also be a
VAN about their AS2 software. Inovis has a package called
BizConnect which costs $5000 for the first 5 tp's, plus an
additional $4,800 for licensing, plus 20% of that for maintenance
($900). So, up-front costs are seemingly high and would obviously
make our ROI of a longer duration.
I was thinking, and perhaps incorrectly so, that if we could find
and buy some encryption software we could then do the AS2
communications ourselves and not need the AS2-based solutions that
the VANs (and others) seem to want to push. This would effectively
get rid of the 80% EDI transactions going through our VAN now. We
would most likely never eliminate the VAN completely but in the long
run the costs should be lower over time.
I realize the responsibilities would lie on our company as we would
then be acting like a VAN as far as audiing and errors, etc.
However, I'm still thinking that even if our top 5 vendors/trading
partners can do AS2 then only 20% EDI volume would go through the
VAN and make this a cost-effective alternative for us. It may take
several months to realize those savings but the decision is not up
to me - I only write up my findings.
Any thoughts on this as well as specific software I might research?
Thanks again!
Walter
--- In [email protected], "Carl Galgano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> A lot of this depends on if you are trading with customers or
vendors. If
> you are the customer, then obviously you have quite a bit of
leverage.
> Sometimes change can be painful.
>
> AS2 is a good solution, but not the "free on the internet"
solution you may
> be looking for. AS2 for 75 partners will get expensive for the
software as
> well as the implementation. Obviously the type of data (ie
banking or
> HIPAA) might mandate you go with some sort of secure communication
protocol.
>
> We have a customer who also was using easylink via a dial up BSC
connection.
> They had about 60 proprietary EDI partners (internal app) and 15
real EDI
> partners. We ended up building them an FTP server that only
served to
> communicate with partners and ditched the easylink VAN all
together. If was
> a much cheaper solution that supporting AS2, and frankly, this
customer did
> not need the security of AS2.
>
> It has been a very cost effective solution, and we maintain it for
the
> customer at a fraction of these VAN charges they were spending.
>
> cjg
>
>
> Carl J. Galgano
> EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
> 770-422-2995
> www.ediconsulting.com
>
> 600 Kennesaw Avenue
> Suite 400
> Marietta, GA 30060
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of
> w_cohen99
> Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 10:00 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [EDI-L] Reducing/eliminating our EDI VAN
>
> We are a mid-size company and use EDI through Easylink (VAN). We
have 75
> trading partners of which some of them are EDI brokers and some of
them
> themselves use other VANs and we pay about $1k per month for our
low-volume
> communications costs (~3600kc). We [still] use a dial-up modem
while
> connecting to Easylink.
>
> We want to get into the 21st century and get away from using the
modem so we
> are looking at other options (internet/web-based, ftp, http, AS1,
AS2, etc).
>
> Ideally we'd like to try and eliminate the VAN communication costs
from the
> picture. What we've done so far is look at other VANs that allow
us to get
> off the modem and go through an internet protocol (via web
browser) for
> communicating.
>
> My question is how do I go about researching other alternatives
such as
> using AS2? DO I need to poll all of my trading partners to see if
they can
> handle AS2? If some can handle AS2 and some can't then what are my
options?
> How can we [slowly] get off of teh EDI VAN?
>
> Thaks for any assistance.
> Walter
>
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