Netscape kills LivePayment
Netscape confirms that it has discontinued its LivePayment merchant software to pursue other transaction options.
Instead, Netscape will pursue more lucrative markets for electronic commerce software through Actra Business Systems, its joint venture with GE Information Systems.
The LivePayment module, which plugged into Netscape's Enterprise Server, sold for $1,995 when it began shipping in September and never picked up many customers.
"We have been working with customers to determine migration paths to other solutions from some of our payment partners," Netscape's Andrea Cook said. "Basically, there was not a huge customer response in the market." She said the decision to pull the plug on LivePayment was made about two months ago.
Likely candidates to take over LivePayment customers include CyberCash and VeriFone, both of which market payment software for merchants. Netscape is currently negotiating contracts to support its LivePayment customers.
Netscape has focused its core business on intranet software, pushing e-commerce efforts into Actra and consumer-oriented activity into its majority-owned Navio Communications unit.
Actra is expected to launch its products this spring; they are designed for sophisticated users that want to combine Web technologies with the electronic data interchange (EDI) capabilities. GEIS is the largest vendor in the EDI market, which involves sending standard forms directly from computer to computer without human intervention.