BLUE MARTINI SOFTWARE'S core premise is that an effective approach to e-commerce requires an integrated suite of applications. In pursuit of that goal, the company has developed customer and channel relationship management modules that are tightly coupled to an e-commerce transaction engine and business intelligence software. Among its customers are Polaroid, Harley-Davidson, and Saks Fifth Avenue. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard, Blue Martini founder, president, and CEO Monte Zweben argues that integrated suites of packaged applications will always win the day.

InfoWorld: How do you define Blue Martini's mission?

Zweben: Blue Martini essentially allows companies to understand who their customers and partners are, to target them with key messages, and to interact with them directly across multiple touch points. We sell four applications to different constituencies in Global 2000 companies: Blue Martini Marketing, Blue Martini Commerce, Blue Martini Channels, and Blue Martini Service.

InfoWorld: So your applications span both Internet and brick-and-mortar applications?

Zweben: Well, Saks Fifth Avenue has built Web sites in Blue Martini, but they've also built a wireless application in their 230 stores that allows consumers to walk around with wireless devices scanning products, putting them on registries, and learning about those products.

InfoWorld: What is Blue Martini's role in the development of collaborative-commerce applications?

Zweben: Blue Martini Channels is for those companies that don't necessarily sell just directly but also sell through distribution channels. Customers use our software to target each one of their resellers with the appropriate competitive information and to arm them to sell more. They also syndicate content all down the supply chain. Most importantly, Blue Martini Channels allows them to participate in marketplaces or private trading exchanges. Blue Martini provides the applications that enable companies to seamlessly participate as suppliers on private trading exchanges.

InfoWorld: How is that done?

Zweben: First, we provide a catalog application, so that the business people in a manufacturing organization can assemble catalogs derived from multiple constituencies. We're able to take information, assemble it in a central repository, and deploy it everywhere; this is what we call a process of universal cataloging. Then we deploy the catalog out to the marketplace via a connector or an adapter. In some cases, that may be an XML capability or it may be other kinds of technologies. The last application is service. We have a call center solution.

InfoWorld: Why is that important?

Zweben: The real news about private trading marketplaces is that to be a supplier in it is like becoming a bargain basement because you're making

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