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Forrester Sees Need for Greater Integration: For the Internet to deliver on its promise of cheaper and easier business practices, organizations must integrate their online sites with the information technology systems at the heart of their operations, says Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass.

In a new report, the market research firm said organizations must integrate systems such as inventory management, order processing, financials and customer service to get the most out of online transactions. The report is called the Commerce Integration Imperative.

"Few online commerce operations have laid out a big picture for fully integrating their site into existing business operations," said Bob Chatham, senior analyst in Forrester's Commerce Technology Strategies service.

Noblestar Launches Software Company: Falls Church, Va.-based systems integrator Noblestar Systems Corp. formed a software products business called Riverbed Technologies.

Wayne Jackson, formerly Noble-star's director of emerging technologies, will be president of Riverbed. It will develop software products for integrating handheld and nonstandard devices with traditional enterprise computing resources.

One of Noblestar's most significant allies, Palm Computing Inc., a 3Com company, will be a key Riverbed platform partner. "Noblestar was one of our first enterprise partners and has played an important role in shaping the discussion of what handheld devices mean," said Mark Bercow, vice president of strategic alliances and platform development at Palm.

Wang Adds Logistics Service: PC ServiceSource of Dallas and Wang Global of Billerica, Mass., have formed a partnership to bring together PC ServiceSource's logistics business with Wang's maintenance services.

The partnership will benefit extended warranty service providers because Wang will be able to provide service personnel for all repair transactions. PC ServiceSource will serve as the source for parts.

Through the new relationship, Wang Global will accept requests from ESPs for both required labor and parts. The company will then order the needed parts directly from PC ServiceSource, which will bill the ESP directly.

- Nick Wakeman

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