Graph Expo 2000--Vendor Coalitions Offer Real Promise

The new e-commerce startup Digeno, funded by R.R. Donnelley & Sons (RRD), has a series of different business assumptions from its competition. Among its nearly 20 employees, there are no programmers. All programming is done by third-party contractors.

Secondly, Kevin Hess, Digeno's CTO, feels that the firm has leap-frogged its older e-commerce competitors by incorporating software by BroadVision, Adexa, Click2Learn and Exodus—many of which are used by firms like Yahoo. Also, RRD, being a totally web printer, thinks its pricing model will be attractive to non-competing sheetfed printers in the $3 million to $30 million annual sales range. The buyer pays $9.95 per RFQ; the printer pays $19.95 per sold job up to $10,000 in value and $15/month per password.