AS2 cost

[TechResearch]

Hello all,

I have 2 questions regarding AS2 products cost:

Do all AS2 products come with a per trading partner cost?
How much per TP are the vendors asking?

I have found some information about the cost to establish a trading relation with Wal-Mart which comes with *special prices, but how much will I be charged for stablishing another TP. (I'm interested in any AS2 compliant vendor for now)

Any information about this would be appreciated. thanks

 

[xsmwh]

All of the providers we have contacted have their pricing base in "blocks" of tp's. As you are probably aware, it can become extremely expensive when you are dealing with hundreds of partners.

I would be interested in opinions on why the cost of the products can vary from $3000 to $250k? Are some designed only as a communication device for sending and receiving data? If I'm not looking for a massive integration solution who should I contact?

 

[TechResearch]

For what I have read there are 2 basic options you have when going for an AS2 solution.
One is to get a standalone product and the other is to integrate the product to an EDI software you already own (GE Desktop, GenTran, TrustedLink).

Standalone products are more expensive because of the control, management and administration features that they offer.

I started my research this week, it seems that all products are bounded to TP blocks as you stated, and the price goes way up when you have a bunch of TPs.

I read in one post at this forum that iSoft charges $2000 for each additional trading partner and the price goes down if you have more than 20 TPs.

Lexicom charges $495 for each additional connection (windows,unix), $995 AS400, there are special rates if you get packages of additional connections (4,10,30).

I found this on the net, it is not information I have gotten from the vendors.

I don't really know why the big difference about the costs you state, If I have to guess I will say $3000 is for a standalone or integrated solution for one or two trading partners, and $250k for a complete solution with tons of TPS.

By the way, where did you find that information about that variance on the costs?

 

[xsmwh]

The price range is from our contacts with the certified solution providers. These are quotes we have obtained over the phone for "unlimited" number of tp's.

Our translator is Gentran:Basic MVS and we are not looking to change anything in our current EDI architecture. We are looking for an AS2 solution that can "grab" the files out of Gentran and send them out the door via AS2. We also may need to continue to send/receive data via async or bisync direct connections with our current communication software Connect:Mailbox.

Any suggestions on who we should be leaning towards?

 

[edianalyst]

xsmwh,

I would suggest Cleo Lexicom if you're looking to simply adding capabilties of send/receive in AS2 to your current architecture as its relatively cheap, easy to setup and support is pretty good.


Also, I started another thread before: EDIINT - AS2 where some other info is also available.

 

[JayV]

WTFisHandle,

Take a second to check out

http://www.boomi.com

. We use their Exchange Series product and will use their AS2 Transport for trading with Wal-Mart. The AS2 Transport is currently being certified and they are expecting that process to be completed by the end of February. They quoted us starting under $1000 for one TP and pricing went down if we had more.

Let me know if you need any more info.

-JayV

 

[TechResearch]

JayV, Thanks for the link. I checked out the site and I will check out many more since right now we have a priority regarding the AS2 issue.
We are a non-US company with a base of about 1500 Trading partners and we are planning to test the AS2 spec to see how it fits with our needs and whether it is a good choice for some of our trading partners. Our intention is to try some of the AS2 products and get a better understanding of the features and capabilities they offer.