Lawson M3 Customers Get New B2B Option from Axway

April 1, 2009 Alex Woodie

Lawson M3 customers who are wondering how they are going to connect with trading partners on the other side of the globe were presented with a new B2B software option last week when Axway launched a pre-configured version of its flagship B2B product geared specifically to Lawson’s mid-sized customers. Called B2Bi Express, the new product is available via SaaS or can be installed on-premise.

Axway bills B2Bi Express as a scaled down, less expensive version of its flagship business process management (BPM) suite, Synchrony, which is composed of more than 20 products and is capable of overseeing hundreds of thousands of transaction occurring across thousands of trading partners.

Not every company needs that sort of power and scalability, so the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company worked with Lawson to develop B2Bi Express to serve the more modest needs of mid market companies, such as the thousands of manufacturers and distributors that rely on the combination of Lawson’s M3 and IBM System i server to help run their businesses.

With B2Bi Express–which is being offered by Lawson and others–customers gain a messaging engine that supports all the major B2B protocols and formats, such as EDI, AS2, and ebXML. The software includes mapping and message tracking capabilities, and offers integration points for plugging into back-end ERP systems. But perhaps most importantly, B2Bi Express includes tools for managing trading partners and trading communities, features that are not always included in mid-market offerings.

Axway developed B2Bi Express as a way to help customers extend their ERP systems, says Ulf Persson, director of solutions marketing for Axway. “We look at Axway B2Bi Express as completing the last mile’ of integration for the SME space,” he says, referring to small and mid size enterprises.

Ole Rasmussen, global director of product management for Lawson, which is based in St. Paul, Minnesota, says B2Bi Express makes enterprise-class data integration capabilities available to mid sized companies. “Our global partnership with Axway will help bring the full scope of enterprise management software to these and our larger customers,” Rasmussen says. “B2Bi Express and the rest of the Axway offering can help support our global rollout of Lawson applications.