CARGOSMART SIGNS TECHNICAL AGREEMENT WITH HEWLETT-PACKARD

MIAMI FIRM APPLIES TO FMC FOR OTI LICENSES    CargoSmart, the Internet ocean shipping portal owned by Orient Overseas Container Line, has signed a three-year agreement with Hewlett-Packard requiring the IT group to host the data as a neutral party.
   CargoSmart said that it will outsource its data hosting to
Hewlett-Packard, which will provide a 24×7 multilingual help desk, production services, technical services, application support, production control and facility management.
   The agreement for a neutral party to host the data is aimed at ensuring that customer data is kept confidential.
   “This announcement helps to support our neutral position, that we are open to all carriers joining CargoSmart at any time,” said Joseph O’Brien, director of marketing for CargoSmart.
   OOCL is currently the sole ocean carrier to use the portal, but it said that CargoSmart will attract other carriers to the system as users or as investors.
   CargoSmart said that it has over 400 users such as shippers, with an average of 8,000 logins a month.
   Operational since October 2000, CargoSmart provides real-time shipment details, event notification, and a relationship management function for managing how and when shipment information is shared with trade partners. CargoSmart also has sailing schedule and cargo tracking applications.
   It plans to introduce interactive online booking, rate procurement and bill of lading processing services soon.