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RosettaNet targets more SMEs By Presenna Nambiar October 23 2007 ROSETTANET, a consortium of industry leaders with the mission to deliver efficient ways to carry out e-commerce, expects to double the number of companies using its standards in Malaysia from 446 now. RosettaNet Malaysia director Foong Heng Huo said the introduction of the scaled down version of its standards called RosettaNet Automated Enablement (RAE) will help quicken the adoption of RAE among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and small and medium industries (SMIs). RosettaNet is an electronic business document used by companies to execute transactions. It helps to lower their costs with the absence of paperwork and manual processes by operating from system to system. For example, a supplier can issue electronic invoices to their customers using RosettaNet as the document standard. Most of the world's Fortune 500 companies use the standard. "The RosettaNet has been very successful with the big multinational companies, but we've had some issues and difficulties getting down to the SMEs and SMIs, due to cost and technology barriers. The RAE, however, addresses these issues," he said. Foong said the RAE when used in conjunction with ECMA Open XML, like Microsoft programmes, enables SMEs to use the standards using existing Microsoft applications, making it easier for SMEs to implement. RAE was developed through RosettaNet Malaysia's technological collaboration with Microsoft Malaysia. Around 99.2 per cent of companies in Malaysia are SMEs. The cost of implementing RosettaNet using the previous standard would range between RM5,000 and RM30,000 depending on the size of the operations. RAE enables companies to pay as they use as well as embed the standards into existing applications, thereby reducing costs. Foong said globally, RosettaNet's standards are developed in Penang, using Malaysian expertise. He said companies looking to adopt RosettaNet can apply for the RosettaNet Malaysia Grant administered by SMIDEC. About RM3 million of the grant have been used up for the cause. The grant funds 70 per cent of the cost of implementation, while the rest is tax-exempted. RosettaNet will organise a conference between October 29 and October 30 in Penang, which will demonstrate the workings of the RAE standard for SMEs and MNCs. |
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