Compaq Computer Corp., Houston, has signed agreements with nine software vendors to help deliver its Zero Latency Enterprise initiative, which is designed to give businesses a real-time view of customer contact and let them access information from all areas of the company.
Core services of the ZLE initiative include work flow management, data mining and analytics. Users can use all the services or only the ones they want.
While Compaq servers and database and software technologies are ZLE's framework, the nine software vendors signed this month will provide added technology and will allow users to better customize ZLE to their needs.
The vendors are divided into three categories. The first group will provide software to conduct core ZLE services; a second group provides software for docking applications that will allow users to add existing applications to ZLE; and the third group will develop applications to customize a company's software with specific features of ZLE.
The nine vendors are Actional Corp., Acxiom Corp., Blaze Software, Mercator Software, Microstrategy, Protagona Worldwide, SAS Institute, Savant Technologies and Trillium Software.
ZLE is designed for large corporations, said Greg Battas, director of advanced technology at Compaq, and the estimated installation cost is $10 million. Ten companies have installed ZLE since its introduction last summer.
Compaq currently offers ZLE packages designed for the retail, finance and telecom industries. Later this year it plans to release systems for the entertainment, travel and utilities industries as well as six other markets.
Compaq is rolling out a multimillion-dollar marketing program for ZLE that will include advertising, press and analyst relations and customer testimonials.
