Business Concerns
John Wiley & Sons, a worldwide leader in the publishing industry,
is at the forefront of change from print to electronic distribution
of its goods via the World Wide Web. John Wiley & Sons has successfully
established a significant Web presence, including multiple Web sites
designed for targeted audiences (Wiley's Children's Books/Teacher's
Corner, Wiley College, etc.) and an on-line catalog system
of its publications.
However, even though an on-line catalog is available to select
merchandise, John Wiley & Sons' customers must still rely on fax,
mail, or phone orders to make a purchase. Some on-line ordering
facilities are being added, but to deploy true electronic commerce
a transactional link between the Internet and the AS/400-based global
production publishing and accounting system is required. Since its
production systems are written in Synon/2E from Synon, an IBM business
partner, John Wiley & Sons' IS department is evaluating a new solution
from Synon called Thin Client for 2E.
Synon/2E is a full-life cycle, model-based application development
environment well-suited for building AS/400 applications. Thin Client
for 2E increases the capabilities of Synon/2E by allowing an application
developer to generate Java client-AS/400 server applications from the
same Synon/2E design models that are used to generate host-based
applications. This allows legacy code to be immediately deployed
as feature-rich graphical applications in Web-enabled transaction
processing environments.
Solution Synopsis
In 1998, John Wiley & Sons will offer an order entry facility on
the Web so that customers on a global scale can access its catalog,
get exact shipping, pricing, and product availability information,
as well as execute orders from its production systems running on AS/400
in real time. The customer supplies their country of origin and "point
and clicks" on the appropriate geographic region, which then connects
the order to the specific AS/400 system that serves that particular
locale. Pricing, availability, shipping costs, delivery times, and terms
and conditions will be accurate and relevant to the individual customer. The
need for fax, phone, and mail ordering, while still available, will no
longer be the only methods of placing an order. This is expected to
reduce order processing costs and error rates while at the same time
increase customer satisfaction.
Warren Fristensky, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at
John Wiley & Sons, said "All five regions will be dynamically managed,
performing seamless electronic commerce that links our Web server to our
AS/400 based management and publishing repository. With Thin Client for
2E, we will provide seamless integration globally, serving the customer
from the location that knows that customer best while providing worldwide
management."
Business Profile
John Wiley & Sons is the oldest independent publisher in North America,
and has a large international presence. Headquartered in New York City,
John Wiley & Sons also has offices elsewhere in the U.S., as well as in
England, Germany, Canada, Australia, and many Asian countries. John Wiley
& Sons publishes books, journals, and electronic products for the education,
professional, scientific, technical, and consumer markets, and promotes
more than 11,000 active book titles and 400 journals. John Wiley & Sons
is also in the forefront of electronic publishing of materials with more
than 200 products and services on disk, CD-ROM, or available by network.