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Vancouver, BC - July 31, 2001 -- Antarctica Systems Inc. (ASI), a leader in the data visualization market, today announced a partnership with the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA). Antarctica has applied its Visual Net mapping software to three of ECCMA's code lists: the Universal Standard Products and Services Classification (UNSPSC); the ECCMA Global Attribute Schema (EGAS); and the International Address Element Code (IAEC).
The UNSPSC is a hierarchical coding system used to classify goods and services. The UNSPSC code provides a standard index classification for electronic catalogs and standard account codes for Spend Analysis. Adoption of the UNSPSC code has been rapid and significant with more than 1500 companies from 43 countries participating in the development and maintenance of the standard through the ECCMA process.
These companies and organizations often have thousands of line items, and everything from staplers to sweaters to funeral services need to be accounted for and coded to the UNSPSC standard. Visual Net provides a deep, accurate, and intuitive map of enterprise product spaces, allowing companies to search for and locate the classifications of their goods and services within the UNSPSC file.
"The UNSPSC and other ECCMA codes provide the only basis I've seen for managing business processes and product flows based on real numbers and statistics, rather than by the seat of your pants," states Tim Bray, founder and CEO of Antarctica. "Combining this data with our Visual Net interface is a basis for the quantitative management practices that are essential in these difficult business times and is going to be a huge step forward compared to today's primitive management and tracking systems.
Visual Net allows users to navigate through all three classifications from the same interface. It maps the ECCMA codes into categories on large-scale maps that use a superior navigation system and information-rich visuals to convey relevant data to users faster. Where standard database interfaces rely on old-fashioned text search technology, Visual Net gives data a unique Graphical User Interface. People get more and better use out of their databases and taxonomies, just like the Windows GUI made PCs more useful for ordinary users.
Yvette Thomas, Executive Director of ECCMA states, "We are very pleased to be partnering with Antarctica on this effort and they are to be commended for the significant contribution they are making to the ECCMA membership. Visual Net is an incredibly powerful search mechanism for navigating code list files. This important tool will help promote the continued growth of Open Source standards for content by facilitating even greater ease of use and implementation of the code sets."
This is the first of two knowledge management applications of Visual Net related to the UNSPSC code. ASI is currently developing a map based on the classification tagging output for an actual company.
About Visual Net
Visual Net is a highly customizable information visualization tool based on visual mapping techniques that enables users to easily navigate and browse information across multiple databases and in multiple formats. Visual Net is widely applicable to areas such as research libraries, corporate Intranets, eCommerce and cataloging, and general advanced "search and explore" of large amounts of data. Visual Net is offered as standalone software or as part of custom applications provided directly or through ASI's partner channel.
About Antarctica Systems Inc.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Antarctica is a pioneer developer of visual mapping technology. Antarctica delivers its services to individuals and organizations through its flagship product Visual Net, horizontal server-side software that can be easily customized and adapted to applications requiring data be turned into useful information. Antarctica was founded in 1999 by early search engine pioneer and XML co-creator Tim Bray. Privately held, Antarctica's investment partners include Royal Bank Capital Partners, the Working Opportunity Fund and Primaxis Technology Ventures Inc. For additional information, please visit antarctica.net or call 866-NET-MAPS.
About ECCMA
The Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) is a not-for-profit membership organization that creates and manages code groups comprising one or more code lists in support of a specific electronic commerce function. ECCMA uses its website to automate the development, maintenance and distribution of codes almost in real time via a unique and efficient, Internet based service supported by volunteer experts in the field of electronic commerce standards. For additional information please visit www.eccma.org or call + 1 610-625-4170.
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