Fourth Project Management Board (PMB) Meeting in Athens

September 27th-28th, 2001

Athens. The last PMB meeting this year took place in Athens in Greece. The objectives of this meeting was, that the partners get an overview of the common work, to check the milestones and deadlines, and work out a dissemination plan for the after-project-phase. After the PMB a short Technical Meeting took place to discuss all missing points of the pilots for the end-users.

Agenda

Extension of the project was requested but is not officially approved by the commission. The 2nd and 3rd cost statement should be paid around 7th of November. The amendments concerning change of name/status (Interset and OptiNet) are processed and we expect the payments of the CEC by the end of the year.

The modules have to improve. There are still missiong points available, like

1. eShop: SSL integration, creating of XML sites from the HTML data, new backend func-tionality regarding the end-users requirements, administration tool, multi-merchant support, multi-language support
2. Virtual reality: Atlantide will go one with VR, integration of the window, and support of producing 3D data
3. Configuration: 3D data is missing for the configuration database
4. Help-desk: Tomcat 4 should be integrated into JBoss (advice of Anecon), use of VoIP is implemented
5. 3D data: We need the 3D data for the configuration. That means problems for Interset because they really don't need it and in addition the implementation effort at the client computer is too high at the moment.
6. Product presentation: The 2D configuration was selected for the Interset pilot. Atlantide can use the 2D pictures and Janni can maintain an additional URL for the product, but will the interface work with 2D representation?

These pilots are stable enough to seriously invite customers to present the system to them now. But the project partners still need additional work of the different modules during the pilot phase. For the development partners INTELLECT has some person months for the support of the pilots. How these months can be as-signed and for what purposes, must be agreed on. INTELLECT will set-up a list of maintenance points concerning all modules. That means requirements for up-dates, bug fixes, additional requirements and so on. OptiNet will handle that.

The new version of the software environment is available: Tomcat 4.0. The use of these tools makes it necessary to implement a new application server. In addition this would be needed for the integration of the mirroring with the whole shop.

The dissemination deliverable was postponed until the (new) end of the project and for that INTELLECT will need a more detailed / realistic view of the exploitation tables in the deliverable (towards a business plan). All software is licence free (if you replace Oracle by PostgreSQL for example). The licence costs of all packages have to be refined in the next version.

Interset is running a B2B web site. The price of this secure site is about € 3.500. For INTELLECT they have to detail the three business cases. ASP is a customer of Anecon and Anecon is doing ASP by themselves. INTELLECT has - following the remarks of the review - to produce a new use plan. Do some commercial calculations for these three models above.

Exploitation of the whole system, of single modules, and of the system to the end users must be defined as the same as the IPR and ECA in parallel. Anecon will talk to ASPs and try to find a reasonable licence structure for these business cases.

The web site is enhanced by the prototype and the help desk functionality. The partner information is updated. The documentation is in the internal area of the site. The third version of the CD-ROM is planned to be more useful as marketing material. Any input from the partners is welcome. Do we need an additional brochure? INTELLECT will need some papers for the next workshops. The CyberH@lles paper and the conference papers should be updated with current information. Blauwerk will have a look at the design of the paper. TopProject will check the "language" of the paper concerning marketing aims. Goal: One page, three columns with two pictures, a screen shot and a flow chart graphics.

The workshop in Greece is planned for mid November, based on the results of the PMB meeting and the outcome of the next pilot weeks. This workshop is an important step (also for the Commission) to show that we are using the chance to involve potential customers. Target companies are customers of Interset (or similar users like Interset) or potential users of other areas (kitchen, furniture, garden, insurance business). In addition some strategic partners to establish the value chain will be invited. Therefore, the presence of Anecon could be useful.

Requirements: Presentations to attract the ASPs (like Forthnet), a guidance / strategy Interset is looking for, a working prototype with real data from Interset, and each other partner who is interested in doing business with the INTELLECT results. In Austria a small (7-12) people workshop is planned for exploiting existing business connections to find strategic partners who can help make the prototype into commercial and successful product. Netway and Ernie (InterShop sellers) are interesting companies. A brainstorming session should be held. How can we get the first paying customer? How can we get a cost estimation to commercialise our prototype? The company should be big enough to pay fees but small enough not to develop it by themselves. If we go for good workshops, we need serious commitments to get a commercial product out of the INTELLECT prototype!

Next PMB just before the final review including a rehearsal meeting at a end-user site. Location is open and up to the INTELLECT members.