Aliant selects ACCPAC Advantage Series for new e-business ASP

ACCPAC International, Inc., a leading global solutions provider and a division of Computer Associates interBiz group, said that telecommunications powerhouse, Aliant Telecom, a division of Aliant, Inc and owner of four regional telephone operating companies, will offer the popular ACCPAC Advantage Series business management solution as an integral part of its new application service provider (ASP) portal. The application is targeted at small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in eastern (Atlantic) Canada.

"We're very keen on offering SMEs the best in business management and productivity enhancement solutions over the Internet using our elaborate e-business ASP infrastructure. We believe that the ACCPAC Advantage Series delivers on that goal. The Aliant eBusiness Solution saves SMEs the time and expense associated with hiring and training IT staff or, if already staffed, enables them to outsource virtually the entire IT function, while running the same business management applications used by major corporations across the continent," said Brian Thompson, senior manager, SME eBusiness Solutions, Aliant Telecom.

ACCPAC Advantage Series Enterprise Edition is designed for mid-market businesses with up to $250 million in annual revenues. ACCPAC Advantage Series was selected, in part, because of its award-winning open and scalable architecture which readily adapts to the unique needs of application service providers (ASPs).

Today, ASPs need business management solutions that provide advanced architectural abilities to support the one-to-many (one installation to many clients) deployment model. Advantage Series provides these advanced functions "out of the box." including multi-versioning (the ability to simultaneously support multiple software versions), security by user and company, and customization of screens and reports by individual users.

"Our Advantage Series provides advanced ASPs, such as Aliant Telecom, with a tremendous value proposition for the mid-market-the ability to flexibly deliver the economies of scale best enabled by true one-to-many application hosting," said ACCPAC President and CEO, David Hood. "Aliant's expertise in delivering communications infrastructure and services coupled with industry leading ACCPAC business management solutions provides SMEs with a powerful and compelling way to build competitive advantage."

Over a three-year period, Aliant said that a typical SME can expect to realise savings of more than 25 percent by subscribing to the telecommunication giant's ASP solutions versus building from the ground up. These savings will come primarily from reducing equipment and IT staffing and training costs, and avoiding the resource drain of having to worry about software updates. The Aliant ASP will allow SMEs to pick and choose what they want-from productivity applications to hardware and software and even the speed of their Internet connection.

"Customers expect Aliant Telecom to provide excellent voice and data networks. Now we're moving beyond that to provide applications that are highly reliable, flexible and useful, such as ACCPAC Advantage Series, over our expansive network right to the customer's desktop," said Dan Rowswell, manager of Enterprise eBusiness Solutions for Aliant.

Advantage Series Enterprise Edition is an integral element of ACCPAC's end-to-end e-business solution set. The suite of SME-focused offerings includes ACCPAC eTransact, a powerful and easy-to-use Web store creation and management solution that adapts to existing business processes and ACCPAC Warehouse Management System, which completes the supply chain with integrated order fulfillment automation.