The company's upgrade, Commerce Exchange 2.0, links existing back-end systems of big corporations to the Net for Internet commerce.
"Its benefit are not just creating new revenue channels over the Internet, but also decreasing the cost per unit by integrating with legacy systems," said Robert Zangrillo, InterWorld chief executive. "It avoids the manual processing of customer information, customer service, and billing."
The software is targeted at both large companies and Internet services that host e-commerce sites, and it supports online auctions, a feature that analysis firm Zona Research likes.
"InterWorld is the only high-end software vendor that offers an auction application and could be well positioned to move into the rapidly growing online auction market," Zona wrote in its daily email commentary.
For corporate customers, InterWorld's suite lets companies link Web storefronts to existing shipping and receiving, management resource process, electronic data interchange, and inventory management systems, InterWorld said.
For commerce service providers such as telcos and ISPs, the software allows a company to host multiple Internet storefronts while giving each merchant or vendor the ability to administer and manage their site remotely.
Zona called Commerce Exchange 2.0 "a surprising, mature software suite for industrial-strength Internet commerce sites" that stacks up well against offerings from Netscape/Actra, Open Market, BroadVision, Connect, and IBM.
The software supports Taxware for sales tax calculation, TanData for shipping and logistics calculation, CyberCash for payment processing, CyberSource for electronic software distribution, and Vantive for customer management.
The suite comes with a prepackaged template called Catalog. The 2.0 version is shipping now, with the auction component available early next year.
Pricing for InterWorld Commerce Exchange 2.0 and Catalog application starts at $75,000, but a typical configuration averages $195,000. It runs on Windows NT and Solaris Unix operating systems and supports Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, and Informix databases.
InterWorld also announced that Planet Hollywood Online of Cupertino, California, will use Commerce Exchange 2.0 to deliver entertainment and sell merchandise over the Internet when it launches next year.