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`Trilogy Making A Name For Itself
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`One of the best-kept secrets in the e-business software marketplace is Trilogy
`Software. You don't know Trilogy?
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`By Laton McCartney | July 28, 2000 -- 19:46 GMT (12:46 PDT) | Topic: E-Commerce
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`One of the best-kept secrets in the e-business software marketplace is Trilogy Software. You don't
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`know Trilogy? Well, there are a number of good reasons you should. -- by Laton McCartney,
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`Inter@ctive Week
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`10 May 2000 - Privately owned and based in Austin, Texas, Trilogy has quietly emerged as a major player
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`in both the enterprise e-business software and dot com spaces. It sells exclusively to Global
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`2000/Fortune 500 firms, employs 1,200 people and has more than 300 corporate customers and 200,000
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`worldwide users. Although it's an 11-year-old enterprise software company targeting brick-and-mortars, it
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`has also incubated a number of successful dot com start-ups, including pcOrder.com.
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`Earlier this year, however, Trilogy entered into a joint Internet venture with Ford Motor that earned the
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`software company a prominent and highly visible place in the e-commerce arena. The new entity will
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`oversee all of Ford's Web-based dealings with customers and dealers. The venture "earns Trilogy a
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`world-class reputation in the e-commerce software market," according to Forrester Research.
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`"That the second biggest company in the U.S. would choose to do something strategic with us is really a
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`validation for Trilogy," says Ajay Agarwal, the company's executive vice president of sales and marketing
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`and the primary architect of Trilogy's e-commerce strategy.
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`All this has been accomplished largely outside the limelight. "We haven't made a lot of noise," says Krista
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`Rollins, vice president of corporate communications at Trilogy. "We sell direct to the Fortune 500, so there
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`hasn't been a need for massive market awareness."
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`financial services, health-care and manufacturing industries.
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`Not bad for a company started by a bunch of kids from Stanford University.
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`Trilogy was founded in 1989 by Chris Porch and four other Stanford students - including current Chief
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`Executive and President Joe Liemandt, who today still reportedly drives a Saturn and chows down at
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`Wendy's even though he's made the Forbes 400 list, grew up in what one of his associates terms "a
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`Fortune 500 household."
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`Iuu6OSKS5DyAMhzKnRm_43-
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`7mD2Qus1lEg6fbJrdwomcKJqh4djhxyFY4hzZSgfk8AxzkqZkYA2iXMfGL0AWCgBpOtLwhkY4wu3gzK57fFVR9Fh2C2Zvk2k-
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`r_Se1GW5yLKLpfi4mCM_lO0nA9LbLLvGMf_Vr2DHrs0KdsOF4C_MUx8hTcRzBQmjOND8moozSb7fPbaWjezk1NYScj-
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`Wa55NZfZO93AIbu_HOEbY3JkpVH0DSVTQzqa5f1_iQPUTIJBY1)
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`Liemandt's father was one of Jack Welch's senior managers at General Electric. Watching GE's operations
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`from the familial sidelines, Liemandt, saw the problems big manufacturers experienced selling complex
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`products such as computers, which typically were delivered with the wrong - or missing - parts.
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`Determined to start a company that could use technology to address this issue, Liemandt dropped out of
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`college and, with his four Stanford colleagues, started Trilogy.
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`Over several years, Trilogy developed a software configuration and pricing engine that enabled corporate
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`chief information officers to analyze and order exactly the system they needed. Trilogy, which sold its
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`software to computer vendors such as Compaq Computer, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, had about 80
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`percent of the computer industry as customers by the mid-1990s.
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`Then along came the Net and the first killer business on the Web - selling computers. Trilogy was in the
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`right place at the right time, though inadvertently so. "I'd like to tell you this was a grand scheme of ours,
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`become key components to our e-business strategy."
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`As the Internet started to take off, Trilogy added a customer-driven front end to its software that featured
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`Web-enabled business tools such as an electronic catalog. In 1996, it spun off pcOrder, which was aimed
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`at suppliers, resellers and end users who bought and sold PCs over the Web. "PcOrder.com led our
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`Internet charge," Rollins says. Today, the company generates an estimated US$44 million in revenue.
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`With the success of pcOrder, Trilogy expanded into other vertical markets, such as financial services and
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`the automotive industry, with additional spin-offs such as carOrder.com, which leveraged its
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`configuration, pricing and ordering capabilities. On the software front, however, the big move was the shift
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`to a multichannel e-commerce platform that was built to fill the requirements of major corporate users.
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`"It's based on an architecture designed exclusively for Fortune 500 companies with hundreds of
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`thousands of customers and multiple sales channels," Agarwal says.
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`"As an example, we're selling to auto companies like Toyota that are massively scaled and have, say,
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`20,000 simultaneous hits, yet require subsecond response time," Rollins says.
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`Blue-chip clients
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`With that platform as core, Trilogy has added a number of industry-specific solutions that have helped it
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`secure blue-chip clients in about a dozen vertical markets.
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`In the automotive industry, for example, Trilogy has Ford and recently signed on Bridgestone/Firestone
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`and Jaguar Cars. It remains a dominant supplier in both the computer hardware and software sectors,
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`with a client list that includes EMC, HP, IBM and Tivoli Systems. Trilogy also has a strong presence in
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`financial services, with customers such as Fidelity Brokerage Services and Mutual of Omaha. Leaders in
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`health care, medical supplies, electronics consumer durables, telecom and heavy manufacturing are also
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`well-represented. It's a client list would be coveted by any vendor.
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`Now that Trilogy's success is no longer such a secret, it's likely to encounter some heavy opposition from
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`both dot com and established software vendors. "There's a broad range of competitors out there," says
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`Eric Schmitt, an analyst at Forrester, who lists BroadVision, Calico Commerce, i2 Technologies, IBM and
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`Oracle among the vendors with which Trilogy will be increasingly vying for both business and talent.
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`be keeping employees around."
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`In response to this challenge, Trilogy, which in the past targeted specific colleges such as Cornell
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`University, Duke University, Rice, Southern Methodist University and Stanford for management and
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`technical talent, plans to expand its recruiting efforts.
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`And with the security of selling to giant, well-established clients coupled with spin-off opportunities, the
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`company thinks it is well-positioned to attract and retain the talent it needs to keep pace with its
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`accelerated growth.
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`"I really think we offer the best of both world," Porch says.
`
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`Google makes preemptible VMs more efficient
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`The internet giant is lowering the prices on its already-cheap way to access the
`public cloud.
`
`By Stephanie Condon for Between the Lines | August 9, 2016 -- 17:00 GMT (10:00 PDT) | Topic: Cloud
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`Google on Tuesday announced that it's lowering prices on preemptible virtual machines (VMs), a cheap --
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`albeit somewhat unreliable -- option for customers looking for the cheapest way to access the public
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`cloud.
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`After tweaking algorithms, improving efficiency and analyzing usage patterns, Google product manager
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`Michael Basilyan said in a blog post that preemptible VMs are now up to 33 percent cheaper.
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`Preemptible VMs are just like any other Google Compute Engine VM, with two big caveats: They cannot
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`run for more than 24 hours, and Google can shut them down if it needs the capacity for other purposes.
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`While it's not a guaranteed resource, it gives customers cheap access to any extra cloud capacity.
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`Customers have used thousands of preemptible VM cores in a single job, he said.
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`Amazon Web Services similarly offers Spot Instances, allowing users to bid on extra AWS EC2 instances.
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`The major cloud players have been competing over pricing (http://www.zdnet.com/article/what-google-says-to-
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`aws-price-cuts-our-cloud-is-still-way-cheaper/) for some time. However, Google arguably
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`(http://www.zdnet.com/article/cloud-computing-pricing-beware-the-bill-shock/) comes closest to a model that strives
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`to let customers to pay only for what they use. In addition to offering preemptible VMs, Google earlier this
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`year expanded (http://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-cloud-computing-custom-machine-types-may-woo-more-
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`enterprises/) its Custom Machine Types offerings. They also offer sub-hour billing and sustained use
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`discounts.
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`(http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-continues-its-pivot-to-being-all-about-cloud-services/)
`Microsoft continues its pivot to being all about cloud services (http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-continues-its-
`pivot-to-being-all-about-cloud-services/)
`
`It's not over for Windows and devices. But Microsoft's future is increasingly about the cloud and
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`subscriptions, as its financials and corporate priorities show.
`
`Read More (http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-continues-its-pivot-to-being-all-about-cloud-services/)
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`Sharpen your knowledge. Accelerate your expertise.
`Oracle OpenWorld is the business & technology event you won’t want to miss.
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`Sharpen your knowledge. Accelerate your expertise.
`Oracle OpenWorld is the business & technology event you won’t want to miss.
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`FEATURED CONTENT
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`Sharpen your knowledge. Accelerate your expertise.
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`Facebook rebuffs ad blockers, enhances its own ad controls
`
`The social media site is attempting to improve the ads it shows users, to address the
`core reasons people turn to ad blockers.
`
`By Stephanie Condon for Between the Lines | August 9, 2016 -- 16:54 GMT (09:54 PDT) | Topic: CXO
`
`Facebook on Tuesday announced (http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/08/a-new-way-to-control-the-ads-you-see-on-
`
`facebook-and-an-update-on-ad-blocking/) that it plans to circumvent ad blockers on the desktop version of its
`
`website, showing ads to all of its 1.7 billion users.
`
`The move could anger people who have turned to desktop ad blocking (198 million, according to
`
`(https://pagefair.com/) PageFair) to avoid invasive or clunky ads -- as well as to avoid malware
`
`(http://www.zdnet.com/article/websites-that-reject-ad-blocker-readers-do-not-deserve-your-clicks/).
`
`In a blog post, Facebook's vice president of ads and business platform Andrew Bosworth acknowledged
`
`that when it comes to dealing with bad ads, ad blockers "have been the best options to date." He also
`
`acknowledged, however, that Facebook -- like many content publishers -- makes the bulk of its revenues
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`To appease people unhappy with poor ad experiences without turning off the spigot of ad dollars,
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`Bosworth wrote that Facebook is enhancing the tools it gives users to adjust their ad preferences.
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`"If you don't want to see ads about a certain interest like travel or cats, you can remove the interest from
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`your ad preferences," Bosworth explained. "We also heard that people want to be able to stop seeing ads
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`from businesses or organizations who have added them to their customer lists, and so we are adding
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`tools that allow people to do this."
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`Facebook, he continued, has also improved how it decides which ads to show, and it has created new ad
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`formats "that complement, rather than detract from, people's experience online."
`
`(http://www.zdnet.com/article/enterprises-confront-the-reality-of-multilayered-collaboration/)
`Enterprises confront the reality of 'multilayered' collaboration (http://www.zdnet.com/article/enterprises-confront-
`the-reality-of-multilayered-collaboration/)
`
`The arrival of new communications and collaboration tools has overwhelmed many IT organizations.
`
`Smart organizations are finding ways to bring order to the chaos.
`
`Read More (http://www.zdnet.com/article/enterprises-confront-the-reality-of-multilayered-collaboration/)
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