Great Plains Updates E-Commerce, Hosted Offerings

Microsoft has updated the Great Plains e-commerce line, giving new insight into how it will use Great Plains and existing partners to promote its e-commerce server products. In addition, the company confirmed that bCentral will offer hosted versions of some Great Plains accounting and business management applications, in contrast to earlier stated plans (For details, see “The Role of Great Plains at Microsoft” on page 10 of the Sept. 2001 Update).

eProcure Introduced

In Aug. 2001, Great Plains announced eProcure. Essentially a Great Plains-branded version of a Clarus application called eProcurement, eProcure helps businesses streamline the purchasing process, and includes the following features:

• Tools to route purchase orders by attribute, such as price or job classification, to the proper person for approval.
• Tools for managers to track the cost and performance of specific suppliers, and to direct purchases automatically to the least expensive one.
• The ability for employees to search