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Sterling e-commerce node in Madras

More companies are moving into e-commerce in India. The US-based Sterling Commerce has shown its intentions by setting up its second central node outside the US, Commerce:Exchange, in Madras to manage its regional e-commerce traffic.

The node is being set up to manage the company's customers in the area as well as domestic traffic. The node, officially a electronic data interchange, is

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being set up on the premises of Sterling's Indian technology partner, Satyam Infoway.

Commerce:Exchange can be accessed with a local call from 12 Indian cities, with three more cities to come on by August. The parent Commerce Network in the US can be accessed from all 4,000 nodes (3,500 cities) all over the world.

Satyam Infoway will use the network to supplement its own network, Satyam:Net. It has nine nodes in the country with three more under way. It is country's first private Internet protocol network, and has bases in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Madras, Hyderabad, Pune, Pondicherry, Cochin and Calcutta.

Business-to-business e-commerce is seen as a huge area of potential growth, with sectors like transport, export and automobiles and regulating authorities like the customs and the Reserve Bank of India. This is because most of the trading is done through credit. Sterling sources put the market potential of e-commerce at Rs five billion.

Sterling Commerce has 4,000 nodes in 110 countries and over 20,000 customers most of whom use it for business-to-business dealing. The new node will handle information that till recently were handled by nodes in the US or Canada.

-Compiled from the Indian media

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