PETER will help SMEs save time and money
To demonstrate how European SMEs can benefit from the introduction of electronic marketing and trading facilities, saving money and resources in both work and material, the PETER (Pilot for electronic marketing and trading in European small and medium-sized enterprises) project has been introduced under the Esprit programme. PETER aims to address the individual and specific needs of SMEs in different industrial sectors by making use of today's technologies and building on today's networks. For this, 24 SMEs will participate in PETER as users. The industrial sectors represented by the partners are basically the information technology, business and management consultancy and multimedia productions. After introductory training on electronic commerce and related IPR (intellectual property rights) issues, the user requirements for electronic commerce will be determined and specified. Based on that analysis, a demonstrator will be designed, customised and set up at the partners' and SMEs' premises. This demonstrator will gain a significant input from the technical development being performed in the IMPRIMATUR project which is going to develop an electronic copyright management system that is oriented on a generic, IPR trading consensus-oriented business model. The PETER project will be tested, evaluated and upgraded during a period of 13 months and is expected to be finished by the end of October 1999.