Web-enabled technology opening more options for best-of-breed applications
Thanks to the ubiquitous use of web-enabled integration technology in e-commerce software applications, retailers have more options today in choosing among single-source or best-of-breed technology suites, Rob Garf, director of retail research for research and advisory firm AMR Research Inc., tells Internet Retailer.
“With service-oriented architecture taking center stage in many retail environments, the risks associated with best-of-breed investment decreases,” Garf says. Service-oriented architecture, also referred to as open architecture, is designed from the ground up with XML and other web-based integration technologies to enable free data flow among software applications.
Retailers, therefore, are beginning to think outside the technology box, so to speak, when deciding whether to go with a single-source provider of enterprise applications or take a more customized route. “18 months ago, retailers weren’t even having this discussion, but by now 90% of our retail client base has asked us about the future of enterprise suites in retail,” says Garf, who is speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 4-7 in San Jose, in a session entitled
E-Retailing Technology: Making the Right Decisions.
Not that retailers still don’t need to do their homework, because there is no one-size-fits-all technology platform, experts say. “What’s important for one retailer may not be universally important for others,” says Colleen Coleman, an associate with retail consultants McMillan/Doolittle in Chicago.
Cautions Garf, “With the buying frenzy among technology vendors of the last 18 months, we’re closer to reality in having single sources of technology, but we’re not there yet.”
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