"Internet VAN" vs "Traditional VAN" is not the issue, as these days the "Traditional VANs" would be just as happy if you used the internet to connect with them rather than dial up.
The other aspects have been well covered in all the replies (of course!). Prices are what you can negotiate [and "this month" is the best time to negotiate, unless of course it's December, then it's "this year" :-) ]. Since names have been mentioned, Sterling is very reliable, has good customer service, has Web access for managing your mailboxes, and will let you connect via internet or dial up. Nutshell of the other issues mentioned: - Translation and software does not have to be from same company as VAN services. - VAN can provide addtional tracking, timestamps and status in resolving issues. - VAN provides a single connection instead of you having to monitor success / failure for multiple connections (my understanding is this is the original concept that launched VANs into being, and it still is true) - You may not be able to eliminate all use of a VAN because many of your trading partners may not wish to exchange documents directly because they are happy with a single connection. - Depending on scalability of your connection, additional cost may be incurred due to additional or more robust equipment, and increased software license fee. - Before going through an unnecessary VAN migration, see if your VAN will renegotiate your pricing to keep your business, and see what other communication options they make available. (Unless your very unhappy with the quality of their service and plan to make a change regardless). - You can support more than one method at a time, but if you plan to move as much of your traffic as possible to direct AS2 (for example), you will want to keep that in mind when negotiating your VAN pricing as in some instances your KC volume may impact the pricing you can receive. Ken ---- Original Message ----- From: Bob Ball To: [email protected] ; w_cohen99 Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 11:36 PM Subject: Re: [EDI-L] Reducing/eliminating our EDI VAN We are about the same size company in terms of trading partners, and about four years ago we dropped the traditional VANS to take advantage of the Internet VANS. We currently use ICC.NET for a few trading partners, and Intertrade Systems for about 85% of our total roster. Intertrade Systems provide AS2 services for us. I remember when it would take a couple of hours to transmit documents using the dial up modem. It now takes a matter of seconds. And the cost.... it's a fraction of what it was with the "traditional VANS". Intertrade Sytems http://www.intertrade.com/support.html You have an option of a French or English translation to the website Internet Commerce Corporation http://www.icc.net/en_US/oc/icc.net/ Good luck with your research... Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: w_cohen99 To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 6:59 PM Subject: [EDI-L] Reducing/eliminating our EDI VAN We are a mid-size company and use EDI through Easylink (VAN). We have 75 trading partners of which some of them are EDI brokers and some of them themselves use other VANs and we pay about $1k per month for our low-volume communications costs (~3600kc). We [still] use a dial-up modem while connecting to Easylink. We want to get into the 21st century and get away from using the modem so we are looking at other options (internet/web-based, ftp, http, AS1, AS2, etc). Ideally we'd like to try and eliminate the VAN communication costs from the picture. What we've done so far is look at other VANs that allow us to get off the modem and go through an internet protocol (via web browser) for communicating. My question is how do I go about researching other alternatives such as using AS2? DO I need to poll all of my trading partners to see if they can handle AS2? If some can handle AS2 and some can't then what are my options? How can we [slowly] get off of teh EDI VAN? Thaks for any assistance. Walter [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
