CyberWolf Partners with Unitech on EDI

Santa Fe, New Mexico (April 29, 2002): CyberWolf Inc. developer of ACUMEN Book, is partnering with Unitech EDI Systems, leader in EDI and Electronic Commerce software, to provide Internet-based EDI capability to publishers who use ACUMEN.

The alliance combines Unitech's EDI programming and customization capabilities with ACUMEN Book's integrated business management software to provide a cost-effective alternative for small to medium-sized book publishers who need modern, technologically up-to-date business solutions for their companies.

"We believe this is the best way to provide a reasonably priced, sustainable EDI solution for our clients," says Larry Wolf, President and Chief Technology Officer for ACUMEN Book.

EDI is a business initiative that started 30 years ago to replace paper documents such as invoices and purchase orders with electronic equivalents. The goal of EDI is to improve communication between trading partners by eliminating the human error implicit in re-keying data, speeding document transmission, and standardizing transaction formats. All major players in the book industry, including Pubnet, Ingram Book Company, Barnes & Noble, amazon.com, and Borders, have developed EDI formats for electronic communication of business transactions with their trading partners.

Historically, EDI has been expensive for small to medium-sized book publishers to set up and maintain. The EDI file mappings are different for each trading partner, formats change frequently, and the changes are often accompanied by challenging deadlines for compliance. Many publishers do not have the staff and/or expertise to dedicate to setting up the application mappings and then handling the required format changes in a timely way.

"Publishers and bookstores are facing an increasing number of technology options," says Rich Vettel, President of Unitech EDI Systems. "Unitech is dedicated to understanding the technology, so publishers don't have to."

"At Unitech, our goal is to make EDI cost-effective for book publishers and easy to use and maintain," says Vettel. "We offer tried and true programs and our team can get most publishers up and running in a matter of days. After that, it's open sailing—the publisher is free to focus on making sales while we keep up with the technology of communicating with their trading partners."

"We created the EDI module last year to enable ACUMEN publishers to conduct business electronically with their major trading partners," says Wolf. "However, as our clients started to evaluate their options for handling EDI, it became clear that the best way for us to responsibly and cost-effectively handle the uncertainty and change of the EDI universe was to partner with Unitech."

Under this agreement, Unitech will provide its technical expertise, software and technical support to publishers who use the ACUMEN EDI Interchange module. Setup and ongoing maintenance of EDI specifications will be handled by Unitech.

CyberWolf and Unitech will be offering a special introductory, variable discount on EDI to current ACUMEN Book clients through CyberWolf's patent-pending Community Development Center.