Big Blue introduces new e-business platform

By Zatni Arbi

BANGKOK (JP): "Count your blessings" is perhaps one of the best pieces of advice we can offer to someone in distress. However, "Count the number of your unpaid bills" would not be a necessary reminder, as modern life is laden with a lot of bills that have to be paid.

Even in the U.S., where people can conveniently pay most of their bills by personal checks, taking care of the monthly bills is quite a chore. Here in Indonesia, it's worse, as personal checks are hardly accepted and Internet banking is still in its infancy. Monthly bills can really be a big waste of time and money. For instance, every month I have to pay the bills for electricity, two telephone lines, water, Internet access, two credit cards, our life insurance and my child's school fee. In a few weeks I will be able -- I hope -- to enjoy faster Internet access through the Kabel Vision's network (they're running the cables in my neighborhood at the moment), and that will bring yet another monthly bill to pay.

All these bills have to be paid. Unfortunately, oftentimes they cause us additional costs, too. Last week, for example, I had to take a bajaj (three-wheeled motorized vehicle) to the closest Bank Lippo just to pay the quarterly premium for our life insurance.

Other times I have had to take an ojek (motorcycle taxi) to deposit the payments for my wife's and my own credit card bills at Bank Panin, Pasar Puri, which is the closest to where we live. My wife is responsible for making sure our monthly water bill is paid, and that means that she has to walk to our neighborhood post office.

Our telephone and electricity bills are paid directly from my savings account at Bank BCA. It's convenient, but it has some inherent risk as we have no control over the amount of the payments that the bank makes to state telephone company PT Telkom and state electricity company PLN. Should Telkom happen to charge us five times the normal amount for our phone bills due to an error on its side, we would find it out perhaps after the fact, and then it may be difficult or at least very time consuming to get our money back.

So, what if there is a Web-based service that enables us to check all the bills that we receive every month? Suppose it can automatically send an e-mail alert to remind us two days before every bill's due date, so that we can avoid the costly late- payment charge. And imagine if we have a number of bank accounts -- perhaps even at different banks -- and we can draw funds from any one of them to pay some of the bills and use the funds from another account to pay other bills so that we can manage our personal finance better.

At any rate, we would be able to do all this without having to grab a bajaj or an ojek, or walk in the polluted air of West Jakarta. I think, like myself, you would be more than willing to pay a premium for this kind of service.

Fortunately, these are a set of services that a Singapore- based company called e-Business eXchange (e-BX) is in the process of bringing to Indonesia. Shane Cumming, the company's senior manager for channels, told me that they were currently in serious talks with an undisclosed partner here.

Certainly, when the service becomes available, I will be one of the first to sign up. The service may cost more than the bajaj and ojek rides, but at least I won't have to waste time anymore just to pay the bills.

Websphere

There are at least two characteristics that make e-BX a unique company. First, it started 30 years ago as a printing company. Today, it still supplies packaging to manufacturers, prints security checks and documents for banks, provides print-on-demand service for telcoms and utilities companies and financial institutions in Singapore. However, it then came up with the idea of providing electronic bill presentment and payment services based on its broad experience in the field. This e-BX is certainly an example of how entrepreneurs can capitalize on their expertise and available technology to create a new business opportunity.

Another unique thing about e-BX is that the electronic bill presentment and payment application was built on a new e-business platform from IBM called WebSphere. IBM launched WebSphere and repositioned it as a new brand in Bangkok on July 13. I had the opportunity to learn about the application that e-BX had developed during the event, where it was on demonstration along with two other companies Webpay and UNO Systems (interestingly, the latter is a Korean-based software company that has just started operation in Indonesia).

WebSphere is not exactly a new name. It was first introduced in September 1998, but now IBM is positioning it as its flagship e-business software. It is actually middleware, which is a suite of software that sits between the operating systems (UNIX, Linux, S/390, Windows NT, Solaris -- all 35 different operating platforms) and the e-business applications.

As the middleware, the WebSphere software can also be classified into three different categories according to its functions. At the bottom layer, the company offers WebSphere Foundation, comprising WebSphere Application Servers and MQSeries.

At the second layer of the middleware, IBM's customers can choose the software services and tools that they need to develop their applications. These include VisualAge for Java, WebSphere Voice Server and WebSphere Host Integrator.

On the top layer of the middleware, customers have a selection of tools that will enable them to quickly build or modify applications as their business processes change or as new business opportunities emerge. These tools are called Application Accelerators, and they include Lotus Domino, MQSeries Workflow and WebSphere B2B Integrator.

What's the use of a suite of great products if there are not enough people who know how to put them together? IBM has promised to address this issue by, for example, setting the goal of hiring at least 1,000 people as WebSphere engineers this year. New centers will also be opened in many cities around the world, including one in New Delhi. This year it also plans to invest US$1 billion in WebSphere.

One of the main advantages that IBM is relying on as it launched the new brand of the e-business software platform is the fact that, unlike other vendors, all the components in WebSphere have been developed by the same company and, therefore, integration should not be a problem. In addition, the range of software products that Big Blue is offering is really mind- blowing. It even includes voice-enabling software based on its own ViaVoice technology.

IBM's Director for Business Line Management and Marketing Edward E. Harbour, explained to me, "The WebSphere Voice Server, for example, will convert text to speech so there will be no need for stored human speech prompts. This will work perfectly together with WAP."

Is it really surprising that IBM, along with other industry giants such as Intel, HP and Compaq, which are traditionally hardware companies, is rushing to the e-business industry? It shouldn't be, as by 2003 the market for B2B e-business, which is the focus of WebSphere, will reach $1.3 trillion according to a conservative estimate.

Obviously, whoever succeeds in securing a leading position there will certainly reign in the new economy. IBM currently has 16 percent market share, according to Giga Information Group, and the share is expected to rise to 24 percent by the end of the fiscal year. Whatever the figure is, what matters most to me is that we should be able to take advantage of more innovative and efficient services such as the electronic bill presentment and payment. (zatni@cbn.net.id)