Short Take: Internet EDI service debuts

Atlanta-based Electronic Commerce Systems has unveiled NetVAN, its electronic data interchange (EDI) service for secure electronic commerce. ECS offers services such as mailboxing, archiving, and audit trails that are available on traditional value added networks (VAN), and costs less than the secure private networks VANs use. Other EDI-over-the-Net services use secure email, which makes it harder to offer traditional VAN services to assure that transactions are conducted correctly. The service, which uses for security, requires setting up a "trading partner" relationship and use of a Web browser.