Northern Trust Company, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Open Business Systems today announced NetTransact, a Java-based billing application designed to facilitate the transfer of business-to-business transactions via the Web for purchases made on credit. The application is being demonstrated today at the Treasury Management Association conference in San Francisco and can be viewed in Northern Trust's whisper suite (San Francisco Marriott).

NetTransact is a secure, interactive system that allows companies to present billing information and accept payments over an extranet, reducing costs and time associated with paper-based treasury management.

"NetTransact represents an important contribution to Northern Trust's electronic commerce business strategy," said Tim Theriault, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Northern Trust. "With NetTransact, we expect to establish a new standard in bill presentment and receivables management conducted over the Web for our business-to-business client relationships."

NetTransact allows corporations to electronically reach those trading partners and customers that do not have traditional Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) capabilities.

"Many large corporations are in a position to exchange invoice and payment remittance information electronically through EDI links for quick and cost-effective transactions. Despite having success in using EDI strategies to link with other large businesses, however, most of their emerging mid-size and small business customers are not in a position to connect using the same solutions, leaving the biller with a protracted paper-based payment cycle, " said Brian Hinton, vice president and electronic commerce manager for Northern Trust Bank. "NetTransact utilizes the Web, extending receivables management systems of individual billers to the desktop of their customers. "

NetTransact enables both the seller and buyer to interactively manage the billing and payment process through a practical electronic commerce application. Both enterprises mutually define their billing and payment business expectations, making the electronic exchange of information more meaningful and effective. By mutually defining business expectations through one common platform, payors and billers have new opportunities to communicate and resolve billing differences online before funds are transferred.

"Through this process, electronic commerce becomes dynamic commerce," said Richard Domalewski, product development manager at Northern Trust.

Through NetTransact, payors can review and modify outstanding invoices and authorize fund transfers through a single platform that is fully integrated with the billers receivables management system. By integrating invoice review and payables management with receivables management onto a common platform, payors and billers have new opportunities to communicate and resolve billing differences online before funds are transferred.

NetTransact was developed and implemented by Sun Professional Services in conjunction with Open Business Systems. Sun Professional Services, a business group within Sun Microsystems, provides technical consulting and integration services for Sun's clients in the areas of IT infrastructure, operations, and Internet and Java-based solutions.

NetTransact was developed on the Sun platform running the Solaris operating environment and using Java development tools. Because NetTransact is Java-enabled, it will run on multiple platforms in a heterogeneous environment, including thin-client network computers and Java-embedded Smart Cards. NetTransact was designed to work within the Sun Connect architecture, Sun's framework for delivering online financial transactions via the Web.

"NetTransact takes full advantage of the Sun Connect framework and Java Computing to provide organizations with a simple, streamlined solution for electronic billing and payment via an extranet," said Rob Hall, vice president, worldwide financial services for Sun Microsystems Computer Company. "We chose to use NetTransact internally at Sun to further extend our extranet capabilities and improve our bill payment system."

Northern Trust is demonstrating NetTransact running on a Sun Enterprise server with two JavaStation network computers at the front-end.

About Northern Trust Corporation

Northern Trust Corporation (Nasdaq: NTRS) is a Chicago-based commercial bank holding company and one of the country's largest trust institutions with subsidiaries in Illinois, Florida, California, Texas, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia and New York, as well as offices in Toronto, Montreal, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. At the end of the second quarter 1997, total assets of the Corporation were $26 billion and trust assets under administration were $898 billion. Northern Trust has earned distinction as a leading provider of treasury management services, including leadership positions in receivables and payables management and electronic funds transfer services. Northern Trust can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.northerntrust.com.

About Open Business Systems

Open Business Systems is a technology consulting firm specializing in the design, development and deployment of Java-based software applications.

Open Business Systems provides custom software development and engineering services that foster the growth and success of their customers using standards-based technologies. A Sun Microsystems reseller, Open Business Systems is one of the leading suppliers of Internet technology and solutions in the Midwest. Open Business Solutions is based in Addison, Illinois and can be contacted through its Web site at http://www.obs.net.

About Sun Microsystems

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network Is The Computer(TM)," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $8.5 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the WorldWide Web at http://www.sun.com.

Source: Northern Trust Company