E-billing for smaller players

A new version of Portal Software's Infranet customer management and billing software could help medium-sized Internet service providers compete with larger ISPs in the electronic commerce market.

Infranet Express is targeted at service providers with 10,000 to 15,000 subscribers, said Judy Chang, product manager for Cupertino, Calif.-based Portal.

"We found that a lot of potential customers for our software were too small to use all the functionality of Infranet," Chang said. "This provides them with an affordable billing and customer management solution and allows them to upgrade to Infranet when they're ready."

The system, which lets ISPs register, track, manage and bill customers, is designed for deployment in as little as two to three weeks, said Chang.Predefine d hardware configurations speed deployment and minimize software customization.

"Customization is part of the Infranet product, and it's a necessity because the large service providers have much more complex networks that require integration work," said Chang. "The smaller target customers for Infranet Express generally have less complex networks, or they're upgrading their networks for new e-commerce opportunities."

The system supports operating systems from Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft and includes mail and terminal server managers.

The flagship Infranet product also has received a boost; version 5.5 of the system includes provisions for split billing, purchase order management and invoicing using a Java-based design tool. The new version will allow service providers to implement the system in a shorter time. It integrates with the Microsoft Commercial Internet System and Netscape's SuiteSpot Manager.