"It was quite a big win because I didn't have to go build support fora new kind of protocol, which would have taken weeks," says Anderson,who noted that the total cost of the service, at under $200,000annually, was less than one-tenth what it would have cost to solve theproblem using a traditional value-added network.

Better yet, Anderson could leverage the solution for other projectswithout additional custom development because Grand Central's hostedservice included prebuilt connections to many other data exchangeformats and protocols. Once Xilinx built its connection to GrandCentral, it could communicate with additional partners in multipleformats without more custom development. That fit right intoAnderson's plan. "I'm trying to get rid of customization to managedown my costs," she says.