London, UK — September 1, 2004 — Demonstrating continued momentum in the global data pool market, Global eXchange Services (GXS) today announced that it has been selected to develop Asia-Pacific’s first certified global data synchronisation (GDS) compliant country data pool for EAN Taiwan, the Taiwanese EAN member organisation of EAN International. This announcement follows on GXS’ earlier announcement of the development and management of Russia’s country data pool.

The Taiwan data pool will offer global interoperability within the Global Data Synchronisation Network (GDSN) and with the GS1 Global Registry, a key enabler to the synchronised exchange of product information between trading partners in Taiwan and throughout the world. Trading partners will be able to quickly and efficiently exchange product information that is accurate, up-to-date and compliant with EAN.UCC standards thus reducing costly out of stocks, increasing speed-to-shelf and reducing logistics costs.

Taiwan’s market position as one of the world’s largest powerhouses for the manufacturing of electronic and consumer goods will be strengthened by the introduction of this country data pool. It will equip local manufacturers and suppliers with the technology necessary to meet mandates set by the world’s largest retailers, such as Home Depot, Metro AG, Tesco and Wal-Mart to send item data electronically to data pools in compliance with Global Data Synchronisation (GDS) standards. The data pool will also serve as a single point of entry into the GDSN, allowing trading partners to share product information with a consistent set of rules, enabling them to share item data globally regardless of the location of their trading partner.

"An increasing number of major retailers are mandating compliance with GDS standards to increase efficiency and gain significant cost savings, and this demand will only continue to grow,” said Kosin Huang, senior analyst, The Yankee Group. “As global standards movements continue to penetrate markets worldwide, manufacturers and suppliers need to develop frameworks so that they can not only trade with global partners, but also leverage strategic technologies like RFID. Only a few vendors have the global reach to provide data pools on a multi-country basis. GXS is one of the leading vendors driving such efforts, as IT consistently delivers data pool technology to widely disparate countries around the globe.”

The EAN Taiwan data pool will be available to all 13,500 Taiwanese members. It will be the first in Asia-Pacific to comply with global supply chain standards created by the EAN.UCC initiative, involving over one million member companies in 133 countries. Leveraging its expertise in developing data pools within the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Korea, Russia and Canada, GXS will enable Taiwanese companies to increase their global export competitiveness.

As an added feature to ensure secure access to all confidential data being stored and managed on the EAN Taiwan data pool, GXS will work with EAN Taiwan to incorporate the GSIKey security system as the front-end security authentication to the EAN Taiwan data pool. The GSIKey provides secure access for each user by authenticating and verifying each member user’s identity before allowing access to the data pool services. This will be the first GSIKey implementation for a GDS data pool.

According to Hui Lin, chief executive officer of EAN Taiwan, “Taiwanese manufacturers, suppliers and retailers have established a strong presence in the global electronics and consumer goods industry. While the local industry has solid relationships with many of the world’s leading companies, we are facing increasing competition from Eastern Europe and other parts of Asia. Local suppliers, both large and small, will be able to share standards-compliant data with a global community thus increasing local supply chain efficiency.”

“A key priority for GXS is to provide a solid infrastructure for global communities to better manage and exchange product information in support of the GDS initiative across the world,” said Ben Wong, GXS vice president of Asia-Pacific operations. “We have 35 years unrivalled experience in B2B e-commerce globally and this initiative provides an exciting new opportunity to improve product information exchange for companies across the globe. This latest data pool signing is particularly important as it is the first certified GDS compliant data pool in the Asia-Pacific region.”

About EAN Taiwan
EAN Taiwan Council is the only member organisation of EAN International in Taiwan, which is a non-profit organisation. EAN Taiwan has been adopting EAN.UCC barcode standard since 1985, and started to promote Auto-Identification, Electronic Data Interchange and Common Product Data Repository, in order to inspire the business automation, and provide the professional service to help the enterprises to improve the auto-traceability, inventory management, Point of Sales System, Efficient Customer Response and collaboritive Commerce. For further information please visit www.eantaiwan.org.tw.

About GXS
GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration and collaboration. Organisations worldwide, including more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage GXS Trading Grid® to achieve balance between supply and demand. Active in the global standards arena, GXS solutions enable customers both large and small, to connect with global partners, synchronise product information, optimise inventory levels and demand forecasts, and accelerate the execution of supply chains.

Headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., GXS provides sales and support to businesses and their partners worldwide. For more information about GXS visit www.gxs.co.uk.