LONDON  — October 28, 2009 — GXS^TM, a leading provider of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions, is hosting the EDIFICE Plenary, which takes place on Wednesday 28th October and Thursday 29th October in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The theme of this 109th Plenary is B2B Past, Present and Future, with presentations by industry-leading companies including Cisco, IDC, GXS and Philips. EDIFICE is the European User Group for the Electronics Industry, and supports and promotes those industry standards which are of relevance to the membership. The two-day Plenary was preceded by an EDIFICE e-Invoicing seminar on Tuesday 27th October at the same location.

This Plenary sets out to investigate what EDIFICE members can learn from B2B in the past decade, discuss current trends, decipher emerging developments and debate their future value.  Case studies, round table debates and practitioner presentations combined with evening networking will provide two days of education and enlightenment.

Details of the event are as follows:

Who:	GXS and the members of EDIFICE
What:	EDIFICE 109th Plenary
When:	October 28-29, 2009
Where:	GXS, Amstelveen, near Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Why:	To discuss the B2B e-commerce lessons learned and best practices in the last ten years and to look ahead at new trends and developments.

Pierfrancesco Manenti, EMEA Research Director for IDC’s Manufacturing Insights and global lead for the Operations Technology Strategies advisory service, is one of the Plenary’s keynote presenters and commented: “Global recession is forcing manufacturers to re-assess their business strategies, processes, and practices. It requires managers to balance the short term requirements to survive, with the need to position their business and take advantage of the coming upturn. Against this fast-changing backdrop, the Plenary will provide an invaluable opportunity to share best practice, insights and points of view.”
Plenary highlights include presentations by:

• Bidur Dhaul, Director, Supplier Collaboration at Philips: Value creation through e-collaboration.
• Arthur Van Staveren of Cisco: How standards based partner solutions drive the objectives of growth, productivity and partner led experience
• Steve Keifer, Vice President Product Marketing, GXS: Highlights of the past decade and a look forward at the opportunities for the next decade including SaaS, cloud computing, mobile applications and web 2.0.
• John Radko, Chief Technology Strategist at GXS, will lead a panel discussion of emerging technology trends including cloud computing, SaaS and Web services.
• Pierfrancesco Manenti, EMEA Research Director for IDC’s Manufacturing Insights: The value of operational excellence today and how to get ready for what comes next after the crisis.

“GXS has operated a data centre near Amsterdam for over 20 years,” noted Boudewijn Janssen, Chairman of EDIFICE “so this represents the ideal location for a Plenary on B2B Past, Present, and Future.  The programme will provide for a lively exchange of ideas and best thinking as companies re-evaluate and re-calibrate their business strategies moving forward.”
"We are expecting about 70 delegates at this EDIFICE Plenary, which gives an indication of the high level of interest in this topic,” commented Denise Oakley, EDIFICE board member and International marketing director for GXS. “This follows EDIFICE’s presentation at AsiaB2B’s Inauguration Conference earlier this month in Taipei which was well also attended.”

About GXS
GXS is a leading global provider of B2B e-commerce solutions that simplify and enhance business process integration and collaboration among trading partners. Organisations worldwide, including more than 70 percent of the Fortune 500, leverage the on-demand services on GXS Trading Grid® to extend supply chain networks, optimise product launches, automate warehouse receiving, manage electronic payments and gain supply chain visibility. GXS Managed Services, GXS’ B2B outsourcing solution, empowers customers with the expertise, technical infrastructure and program support to conduct B2B e-commerce with trading partners globally. 

Based in Gaithersburg, Md., GXS has an extensive global network and has local offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.  GXS can be found on the Web at www.gxs.co.uk, http://blogs.gxs.com/ and http://twitter.com/gxs.

 All products and services mentioned are trademarks of their respective companies.

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For further information please contact:

Denise Oakley, Director, Marketing Programmes International GXS
Tel - +44 (0) 1932 776408 / +44 (0) 7768 537 481 Email: denise.oakley@gxs.com