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November 30, 1998
InformationWeek Labs and Doculabs take a critical, hands-on look at today's E-billing technology and outsourcing solutions--and find a few real solutions among the vaporware By Jeetu Patel, Gautam Desai, and Jason Bromberek of Doculabs and Jason Levitt of InformationWeek Labs 
ill presentment and payment are critical functions that nearly all businesses perform on a daily
basis. Reducing the cost of presenting each bill by just a few cents can save businesses millions
of dollars a year. It's no surprise then that electronic bill presentment and payment
(EBPP)--technologies that will shift this paper trail to standards-based computer networks--is
a hot market.It's also a nebulous one. With most companies still heavily reliant on proprietary EDI networks, and with few working standards in place, the EBPP market could evolve in a number of ways. That explains why, even though Doculabs and InformationWeek Labs evaluated EBPP offerings from 10 vendors, only three actually had a software product that we could install and analyze. With those three vendors--BlueGill, edocs, and TransPoint--we were able to perform a hands-on evaluation of the product, as well as review their strategies, services, and market direction. For the other vendors, we were only able to review their strategies, services, and stated market direction. Keep in mind that we were not expecting to see products from the service providers, as service is their product. Still, even with this consideration, the overall lack of products makes EBPP among the more immature market segments we've ever tested. Here is our take on the offerings from @Work Technologies, Bell & Howell, BlueGill Technologies, CheckFree, CyberCash, edocs, IBS, NetDelivery, Pitney Bowes, and TransPoint. @Work Technologies @Work Technologies provides software designed to publish business-critical documents to the Web. Founded in 1995, the company's expertise comes from management's experience in financial technologies for international monetary funds transfer systems and automated clearinghouse (ACH) transactions, as well as print data stream technologies for print management and high-volume archival systems. @Work's flagship product is the WorkOut Server, a software engine that parses print data streams and renders them to the Web. Developers or administrators can define extraction rules using the product's Visual Trainer utility. These rules are incorporated into a customized Java parsing engine that runs on the WorkOut Server. The WorkOut Server stores extracted indexes in an Oracle database that uses partitioning to improve performance and scalability. The index database allows dynamic querying of bills. The bill detail data itself is stored in compressed form on a file system. WorkOut provides a standard interface to other systems via the Open Financial Exchange protocol, making the system appealing for sending information to consolidators that communicate via OFX. For presentment, the WorkOut Server lets organizations control the look and feel of the bill. Using the Visual Trainer, developers can create HTML presentation templates and incorporate them into high-performance Java servlets that can run on most popular Web servers. These servlets enable dynamic display of billing information. Overall, @Work provides a strong architecture and technology that makes good use of Java, Corba, and other Internet-related standards and technologies. WorkOut Server is a good solution for billers that want to create their own EBPP applications, and it can also be used by consolidators and service bureaus. Still, @Work faces some near-term challenges that will put the small company to the test. Bell & Howell Bell & Howell is best known for its mail processing and image-capture technologies. Functioning primarily as a systems provider, the company provides a best-of-breed technology set that organizations can use to extend their existing Bell & Howell print mail systems. Adding EBPP to the mix is a natural extension of the current service offering. Bell & Howell shared its plans for Impact Internet Billing. This system integrates products and services from CheckFree and edocs with the TransFormer, Bell & Howell's print stream transformation software. Bell & Howell has also integrated Impact with its intelligent inserting and sorting equipment. Though recently rolled out as a strategy, Impact promises to be attractive for organizations that already use Bell & Howell for paper billing, as well as for organizations that want to keep their billing operations within their own walls. 
continued...page 2, 3, 4, 5 
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