LETTER FROM UNITOR

The Digital Ship is a great way to keep up with developments in the marine
IT world, both from the technology and commercial perspectives. The April
issue however contained two statements about Unitor that we feel were
misleading and wish to set right:

Statement:
"Electronic purchasing does not necessarily act in Unitor's interest; it
would much prefer that shipping companies decided to give Unitor a large
chunk of their total business rather than compete for individual
deliveries."

Our comment:
Unitor is not in competition with e-purchasing. Quite the opposite, we
actively offer it to all our customers. When implemented correctly,
e-purchasing is definitely a win-win for both suppliers and buyers as it
leads to lower transaction costs. A correct implementation requires that
the tools, technologies and services have a balanced approach and
effectively remove transaction costs from the value chain rather than
moving them around within the value chain. This is why we together with
other major marine suppliers are successfully supporting Marine Transaction
Services (MTS) as an open industry initiative, aiming for net savings for
all. Hence MTS is open for all and are currently providing transactions for
a growing number of suppliers and buyers.

Regarding the second part of the statement above, Unitor is of course
interested in getting as much business as possible from its customers
through long-term supply agreements.  A supply agreement must be "earned"
by demonstrating that we deliver as promised and at a competitive price.

Statement:
"However it (i.e. Unitor) accepts that the biggest cost of electronic
purchasing is all the computer system integration, the area where ShipServ
can provide the most value because each shipping company and supplier only
needs to be integrated to a computer system once."

Our comment:
This statement must be based on a misunderstanding of the MTS concept. The
vision of MTS is to be a provider offering true net savings to the value
chain owners through provision of quality e-commerce and wide access to
both buyers and suppliers. MTS with it's Ship2Cash strategy was the first
(2002) in the marine industry providing electronic invoicing.   Unitor is
but one of currently 64 suppliers who communicate with currently 21 buyers
using MTS services. A customer integrating via MTS also gains access to the
other suppliers and can obtain quotations, place orders and receive
electronic invoices at will	.

I hope these comments help to clarify Unitor's position.

Regards
Don Pyle
Unitor ASA


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CORRECTION

In the March issue of Digital Ship article "France Telecom's VPN," we stated that the weather information for France Telecom SkyFile is supplied by Meteo Consult, when it is actually supplied by France Meteo. Digital Ship regrets the error