|
[EDI-L Mailing List Archive Home]
[Message List]
[Reply To This Message]
Re: Mercator vs. BizTalk
Mark,
When evaluating BizTalk, don't forget to include the
accelerators provided by Microsoft partners. A key one for
EDI is the Covast Accelerator (www.covast.com), which
resolves many of the issues that BizTalk has with
connectivity and with EDI (such as handling Interchanges).
Covast has their own EDI product (mostly used in Europe),
which they modified to meet Microsoft's requests in regards
to BizTalk.
I would separate the two into mapper and infrastructure
components. The Mercator mapping engine is the best in
class of the ones with which I am familiar (just my opinion,
no intent to start a flame war :-] ). The BizTalk mapping
engine is much less robust -- its ability to handle message
structures such as the 856 HL loop is without scripting or
multiple pass mapping is suspect. We are just beginning to
work with BizTalk, and the capabilities of the mapping
engine are not to the level that we wish.
Of more concern is the Mercator infrastructure:
M4EC/Commerce Broker, if this is what you are evaluating.
Our folks worked with Mercator products for many years at
various companies, and our experiences with this product
have, er, not been fulfilling. At the same time, I'm sure
there are many folks out there who have positive things to
say, and you need to hear from them.
David was absolutely correct in pointing out that you need
to establish your needs before starting to decide which EDI
product is best for you. It may well be that neither of
these products is the best. Also don't rely on the vendors'
statements as to the capabilities of their product in
regards to your needs -- either get a third party to
evaluate them for you or make the vendors do a proof of
concept. The more time and money that you spend up front
making sure you have the right product, the less money and
frustration in the implementation phase.
Regards,
Jim Dawson
Managing Partner
Second Star Professional Services, LLC
www.sspsi.com
919.742.5623
919.548.6521 [mobile]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
|
|
Subscribe in XML format
| RSS 2.0 |
|
| Atom 0.3 |
|
|
Cart
