Computacenter touts e-commerce for the corporate rich

Biomni -- isn't that a washing powder?

Computacenter has launched a e-commerce company to sell everything from PCs to paperclips to big corporates. Very big corporates. Companies with 15,000 users will have to fork out around £500,000 for the service. Biomni, a joint venture between Computacenter and its sister company Computasoft e-Commerce, will be an extension of the UK reseller's existing On-Trac e-commerce system. It will provide corporates with software to order office products and services online, including stationary, desks, car fleets and travel tickets. Biomni is to be a separate company from Computacenter. It's vendor-independent, selling IT equipment direct from manufacturers, or through other resellers. Biomni has three main sections. The Directa software sits on a company's Intranet, and allows users to customise the services they want, such as which suppliers to use. This is linked to Connecta, the transaction engine, and in turn to the suppliers' software, Provida. Computacenter and Computasoft, which makes On-Trac's software, will each invest £2 million in the venture. "Our decision to invest in this new company reflects our belief in the e-commerce opportunity," said Mike Norris, Computacenter CEO. "Biomni will enable us to extend the commercial reach of our joint developments over the last nine years and is our response to growing customer demand for a system that offers extended e-commerce capability." ®