Harbinger outlines post-acquisition product plans

With the dust settling around its $210 million purchase of Premenos Technology Corp., Harbinger Corp. last week outlined how it plans to blend the two companies' product lines.

Harbinger, a longtime force in the electronic data interchange software and services market, completed its acquisition of Premenos in December. Harbinger was attracted to Premenos because of its Internet-based EDI and electronic com- merce products.

While the companies appear to be a good match, there is product overlap - an issue addressed last week by Harbinger CEO David Leach.

Leach said Harbinger will keep its mainframe product, TrustedLink Enterprise for MVS/VSE but eventually will drop Premenos' similar EDI Open offering.

Harbinger also will keep pumping out its TrustedLink Enterprise software for Unix and Windows NT systems, Leach said.

However, Harbinger will phase out its version of TrustedLink Enterprise for conducting EDI on IBM AS/400 machines and will keep Premenos' EDI 400, which Leach said is the market leader with about 57% market share. "We'll provide tools from our OS/400 product for the migration so it won't be hard," he added.

Large companies

For encrypted transmission of EDI forms over the Internet, Harbinger is jettisoning its Trusted-Link Guardian product in favor of Premenos' Templar Secure, which is now being used by 80 large companies, including Chase Manhattan Bank.

While this number of companies may not seem large, it represents a significant foothold because these large corporations can have thousands of connected trading partners.

Harbinger will put development of TrustedLink Guardian on hold in March, Leach said. Templar Secure, which uses proprietary technology for swapping encryption keys, will be enhanced to support the IETF IP Security standard, he said.

Templar Secure also will become an integral component of Harbinger's Internet Value-Added Services software, which is used to set up e-mail and EDI systems in large enterprises and telecommunications companies.

Despite its embrace of Premenos technology, Harbinger will not abandon all of its Web products. The company will continue developing Harbinger Express, a service that lets companies post Web-based EDI forms so trading partners can easily pick up purchase orders using a Web browser.

Harbinger also plans to keep selling its electronic procurement catalog, TrustedLink INP Web Content.

The electronic catalog is being used by book whole-saler Koch, Neff & Oetinger & Co. - the Amazon.com of Germany.