Tenon Intersystems : Press Release

Tenon and Pacific Coast Partner to Provide Turnkey Secure Commerce Solutions

WebTen and WebCatalog combine to facilitate high-performance secure web commerce

Santa Barbara, CA, May 8, 1998. Tenon Intersystems and Pacific Coast Software are joined in a strategic relationship to extend WebTen, the fastest and most powerful Macintosh web server, with secure online commerce capabilities.

WebTen is an industrial-strength Macintosh web server, based on Apache - the most popular web server in the world. Tenon's point & click Apache-based web server not only supports Macintosh-style plug-ins and Macintosh-style CGIs, but also outperforms both Linux and Solaris versions of Apache. WebTen 2.0 includes multihoming SSL 3.0, for encrypted transmissions, multihoming FTP, for uploading web content, NFS, for offloading web content, and DNS, for domain name mappings to IP addresses. On a G3 machine WebTen is capable of sustaining almost 900 hits/second.

Pacific Coast Software is the developer of WebCatalog, the premier eCommerce package for building online storefronts. WebCatalog and its companion package, WebMerchant, combine seamlessly with WebTen to facilitate secure commerce solutions on Macintosh platforms. With WebCatalog, a single WebTen server can support multiple online storefronts, each with hundreds of shoppers simultaneously engaging in secure transactions.

The ability to support multiple secure storefronts on a single machine is a strong feature of WebTen. WebTen's IP-based virtual host support, combined with SSL 3.0, enables a WebTen server to support encrypted transactions on a per-virtual host basis. While other Macintosh web servers force Mac ISPs to buy multiple machines and multiple copies of web server software to support their client's secure commerce requirements, a single WebTen server can be set up to support multiple secure virtual hosts, each with their own unique server certificate from authorized certification authorities, such as Verisign or Thawte. Furthermore, a WebTen server can simultaneously support secure and non-secure virtual hosts, even with identical URLs!

Pacific Coast Software has perfected the online shopping experience - making it easy for both the webmaster and the customers. WebCatalog creates a virtual store front and assigns each online customer a personal shopping assistant . The personal shopping assistant keeps track of product selections and automatically places those items into a virtual shopping cart. Once the shopping is complete, WebMerchant sums the quantities and prices, adds taxes and shipping costs and handles the verification of their credit card. A digital receipt is generated and electronic product delivery, if appropriate, can be made.

Since WebCatalog is database driven, all product names, prices, descriptions, photos, SKUs, etc. can be easily changed. Changes can be made dynamically to a live site by using a remote web browser. and since changes are made to a database and not to the automatically generated HTML pages, sites require less technical knowledge to maintain.

WebCatalog includes a server-side tag language to dyanmically create sophisticated web pages and to perform sophisticated secure commerce functions, such encrypting data, interpreting MIME encoding, and manipulating browser cookies. Built-in invoice functions support complex tax and shipping calculations as well as support for international currencies. The ability to handle multiple character conversion sets supports multi-lingual sites that need to cater to a world-wide clientele.

Tenon is now reselling WebCatalog and WebMerchant. Both products are downloadable directly from the Tenon site: /products/webten. A full demo package is also downloadable. WebCatalog 2.1 sells for $2499.00 and WebMerchant 2.0 is $995. For a limited time, Tenon will offer both WebCatalog and WebMerchant for a 20% discount. WebTen, also available as a downloadable demo from the Tenon site, is $495 and includes a coupon for a FREE copy of Funnel Web, a sophisticated logging anaylsis tool. A Secure Commerce Bundle (WebCatalog, WebMerchant and WebTen) is available for $2999 - a 25% discount.

Tenon has been producing sophisticated networking software for Apple platforms since 1989. Tenon provided the first multihoming TCP stack for Macintosh, the first Macintosh IP forwarding software, the fastest Macintosh X server, and the first Macintosh caching and proxy Web server. Now, with WebTen, Tenon is continuing to add innovative technologies to extend the capabilities of Apple's state-of-the art personal computer platforms. Tenon Intersystems can be reached in the US at 805-963-6983, by the internet at sales@tenon.com, or via the web at

Pacific Coast, founded in 1989 and located in San Diego, CA, provides complete eCommerce consulting and hosting services in addition to its product line of Web server tools. Pacific Coast can be reached by phone at 619-675-1106, by the internet at sales@pacific-coast.com, or via the web at http://www.pacific-coast.com.