Demandware Launched

Led by e-commerce visionary Stephan Schambach, the Demandware founding team combines perspective and experience acquired at pioneering e-commerce companies such as ATG, Allaire, Macromedia, Intershop, and NaviSite. The Internet is a critical sales channel for nearly every major retailer and manufacturer. Forrester Research predicts that online retail alone will grow to $144 billion in 2004 - a 27 percent increase over 2003. However, while e-commerce has become a strategic revenue driver, the underlying model for delivering e-commerce solutions has not adapted to todays business requirements. The challenge for e-commerce infrastructure is two-fold. As a direct expression of a companys brand, e-commerce systems must be adaptable to each companys unique requirements. At the same time, these systems need the capacity to handle very large volumes during peak selling periods, which may only last for a few months of the year, forcing companies to make large upfront investments in underutilized hardware, software and operating personnel. Under Schambachs leadership, Demandware has established a new approach to e-commerce infrastructure that addresses the challenge by combining the flexibility of a highly customizable application with the cost benefits and scalability of software delivered as an on demand service. As a result, companies can create unique e-commerce solutions with operating costs that are aligned with their month-to-month business results. Unlike existing turnkey hosted e-commerce options, implementing e-commerce solutions with Demandware involves customizing the solution for each customers unique business needs using both pre-built and custom-built components, so Demandware is actively partnering with the leading e-commerce system integrators. The Demandware e-commerce platform leverages state-of-the-art e-commerce software, web services and a highly scalable grid computing architecture to provide functionality, flexibility and scalability through an on demand service. Demandware is actively bringing select customers onto the platform prior to general availability, which is planned for the first quarter of 2005.