Ariba B2B Commerce Platform

Ariba is a leading B2B eCommerce platform provider. Its ‘Ariba B2B Commerce Platform’ is described as an ‘open, end- to-end infrastructure of interoperable software solutions and hosted Web-based commerce services.’  It  provides companies with a single point with which to achieve greater Internet-driven economies of scale and greater process efficiencies.

The platform (which includes Ariba Buyer, Ariba Marketplace, Ariba Dynamic Trade and Ariba Commerce Services Network) is used by buyers, suppliers, market makers, and commerce service providers for a great variety of uses.  Companies may use the platform, for example, to automate enterprise-wide procurement processes, build state-of-the-art B2B marketplaces, sell to new markets or simply to bring commerce services online. 

Ariba ORMS

Ariba ORMS is Ariba’s B2B eCommerce application that allows companies to automate the purchasing process from requisition to payment, aggregate spending on operating resources for greater purchasing power, and direct orders to preferred suppliers at contract pricing via the Ariba Network platform. 

Ariba ORMX

Ariba ORMX is a version of ORMS (Ariba’s leading B2B eCommerce solution) , that is tailored to be hosted in an ASP environment thereby enabling companies to use ASP services to access the functionality of ORMS and the commerce services of the Ariba Network platform. 

Ariba ORMX enables companies to capture and aggregate purchases of goods and services from each employee desktop and aggregate spending through Ariba Network to preferred suppliers and B2B marketplaces in order to gain volume discounts. It also provides buyers and their suppliers with access to Ariba Network commerce services (including  auction, reverse auction, electronic payment, content management and B2B marketplace directory services).  See Ariba ORMS

ASP’s

ASP’s (Application Service Providers) are agents or brokers that offer companies access to applications without owning them. In particular, they offer an easy and cost effective way for small and medium size businesses to implement powerful enterprise applications. Examples of ASP’s are Aspective, Corio, Futurelink, Interliant & USinternetworking. 

ATG Dynamo

Art Technology Group’s Dynamo Product Suite is a solution which enables the creation of a platform for performing iCRM (refer to CRM glossary).

BizTalk

The BizTalk Framework is a set of guidelines for driving the consistent adoption of XML to enable e-Commerce and application integration. It is an industry initiative launched by Microsoft as opposed to a standards body and is supported by a variety of organisations ranging from technology vendors (including Commerce One, SAP AG) through to technology user organisations.

Blue Martini Software

Blue Martini Software, with its Customer Interaction System, provides an enterprise-scale Internet application which enables manufacturers and retailers enhance their online marketing, sales and service capabilities. Comprising of 13 modules, it provides comprehensive solutions for e-marketing, e-merchandising and e-service,  that support live customer interaction across multiple communication channels (call centres, Internet, e-mail and over wireless devices etc.), Blue Martini CIS  helps companies build brand equity and increase revenue across all channels. Its open, three-tier architecture leverages workflow, data mining and rules technology.

Bluestone

Bluestone Software’s Total-e-Business product suite provides companies with an e-Business platform and solution.

BroadVision

BroadVision is ranked by IDC as the world’s leading provider of e-Commerce software applications. It develops and delivers an integrated suite of packaged applications, known as BroadVision One-To-One,  for Web and wireless deployment. This product suite includes One-To-One Enterprise, One-To-One Commerce, One-To-One Financial and One-To-One Knowledge and One-To-One Billing.  In addition to powering the Web sites of major enterprises, a growing number of electronic marketplaces and electronic exchanges (e.g. eRugGallery.com, e-Purchasing.com and WorldMetal.com) are also starting to use BroadVision’s e-business applications to manage the e-commerce value chain.

BroadVision also provides a number of tools such as One-To-One Publishing Center (which enables Web content managers to create, classify and update content in a distributed fashion) and One-To-One Command Center (which empowers business managers to control the site in real-time).

BroadVision MarketMaker

BroadVision launched MarketMaker in September 2000, its new B2B e-commerce solution that will enable companies to quickly create B2B exchanges and marketplaces and thereby gain competitive advantage through online business relationships and communities. MarketMaker takes B2B exchanges beyond basic online commerce transactions by enabling the creation and management of online communities through content management, customer intercommunication and account management. It will enable B2B companies to manage both buy-side and sell-side business relationships within their supply chains. (see Net Markets)

Brokat

Headquartered in Germany, Brokat AG is one of the world’s leading suppliers of software for e-Business solutions and is recognised as the worldwide market leader in the Internet Banking sector. Brokat provides applications for companies seeking to offer electronic transactions in the areas of e-Finance, e-Commerce or public services.

Its modular e-Services platform, Twister, is a multi-industry software package that forms the basic infrastructure for the handling of the complex business processes for each of these solutions. It also enables the integration of existing IT systems and applications within companies, and provides secure links to various electronic channels such as the Internet and mobile communications. (see Twister)

‘buy side’

The term ‘buy side’ is used to describe applications and services that address how companies procure products and services. They include requisitioning, end-user identification and integration to other systems. (see sell side)

Cimage e3 eBusiness Applications

Cimage Enterprise Systems’ integrated set of solutions that enable content lifecycle management throughout the distributed enterprise and the supply chain. It includes e3 PM (Project Management), e3 CM (Configuration Management) and e3 RM (Records Management).

Clarify eBusiness Solution

Clarify’s ‘end-to-end’ eBusiness solution

Clarus

Clarus Corporation, with its Clarus Commerce and Clarus eMarket solutions,  is a leading provider of B2B solutions for procurement and Internet trading exchanges. The Clarus Commerce Suite, which includes its flagship product (Clarus e-Procurement) provides Web-based solutions for functions including e-procurement, expense management and travel.  Clarus eMarket provides a framework for creating digital marketplaces. ERP integration is enabled by Clarus Fusion, an integration framework that connects Clarus Commerce real-time to ERP systems using XML- based technologies.

Clickstream

Clickstream is the name of Clickstream Technologies’ Internet tracking technology that powers a range of audience tracking systems and applications including site audience tracking, click-through tracking, advert tracking, Intranet tracking and email tracking.

Commerce One

Commerce One, with solutions such as CommerceOne Buy Site and Commerce One MarketSite, is a leading e-commerce solution provider. CommerceOne Buy Site is a global e-procurement solution xxx. r Commerce One MarketSite is its solution that enables Internet market makers build digital marketplaces and link them to Commerce One’s Global Trading Web (GTW). The GTW, which was founded by Commerce One and comprises of a ,  number of interoperating portals, is  recognised as the world’s largest B2B trading community.

Commerce One BuySite

Commerce One’s global e-procurement solution

Commerce One CSF

Commerce One’s hosted solution that provides sophisticated workflow functionality that was once available only to larger organisations.

Concur

Concur Technologies is a provider of solutions that automate costly and inefficient business processes across the enterprise over the Intranet and Internet.  Concur’s solutions cover travel and expense management, travel booking, non-purchase order requests and HR self-service.

Customer-Centric e-Business

Described as the new ‘killer app’, this is the fusion of traditional CRM capabilities with those of Online Customer Interaction

d-Commerce

d-Commerce (or dynamic commerce) is  a term that has been used to describe how companies conduct dynamic commerce on their Web-sites. d-Commerce, which consists of a variety of pricing options (such as forward auctions, reverse auctions, auction networks, cross-auction portals and exchanges), enables companies to leverage ‘price transparency’ in order to increase the number of buyers. 

Dynamic B2B

Dynamic B2B is a term used by eXcelon to describe its B2B solution that allows  a company to include partners in its business process workflow and thereby  effectively leverage its relationships. This is opposed to traditional b2B architectures (‘hub-and-spoke’) that maintain the partner relationships outside the scope of the enterprise business process.  See eXcelon B2B Integration Server.

EIP

EIP is an acronym for Enterprise Information Portal. Fueled by the growth of the Internet, the EIP is a web-based solution that has revolutionised the delivery of corporate information by linking structured (ie databases) and unstructured (ie documents and images) data across the enterprise, providing users with a single point of access to personalised information that facilitates informed decision making. (see Enterprise Portal)

EKP

EKP is an acronym for Enterprise Knowledge Portal. (see EIP and Enterprise Portal)

Elcom

see PECOS Procurement Manager

e-Marketing

e-Marketing is the term applied to the presentation of company’s brand, product and services on the Internet to help build strong, ongoing customer relationships

e-Merchandising

e-Merchandising is the term applied to the displaying, promotion and selling of products and services via the Internet.

eXcelon B2B Integration Server

eXcelon B2B Integration Server is eXcelon’s B2B solution that provides a hub to which a company can connect its existing systems (including ERP, EAI, EDI, databases & legacy) and also those of outside companies over the Internet, thereby forming a network of partners, suppliers and customers or so-called ‘virtual organisation’. Once companies are connected to the partner network, an organisation can use the Server’s workflow capabilities to define and create automated business processes that span multiple partners in the network.

excelon B2B Integration Server supports all the popular versions of XML (including Rosettanet and OAG) as well as Ariba’s cXML and CommerceOne’s xCBL which enables partner networks to create automated buying and selling processes in eMarkets.   eXcelon have used the term ‘dynamic B2B’ to describe their solution. (see dynamic B2B).

Extensity

Extensity Inc. is a developer of Internet applications for workforce optimisation. Its applications are used for the automation of employee tasks including expense reports, timesheets, purchase requests and travel plans. Its Extensity Connect, by integrating  these  applications and the content in e-commerce, provides employees with a single user interface for managing Internet processes : it has been described as a business-to-employee hub that servers as a central link to online, third-party e-procurement, business travel and billable time management services.

It could, for example, enable an employee  planning a trip to go to Sabre ( with whom Extensity is partnered),  transparently book a ticket online, choose an airline, make a reservation and stay at the appropriate hotels with a discount.  In this way, Extensity, with its ability  to aggregate content from multiple portals, is seeking to neutrally provide access to marketplaces. 

Geobot

Geobot, with its flagship product Universus, is a provider of intelligent-agent software solutions that facilitate the creation and expansion of electronic B2B marketplaces.

Harbinger

Harbinger Corporation, whose aim to establish harbinger.net as the preferred virtual e-Commerce center for information and mission- critical, B2B e-Commerce transactions, was acquired by Peregrine Systems. This acquisition will combine Harbinger’s ‘harbinger.netSM’  e-Marketplace capabilities with Peregrine’s e-Procurement, asset and infrastructure management capabilities thereby creating a company that is, at the time of the acquisition, by far the largest provider of end-to-end business solutions.  Harbinger’s enabling services via the e-Marketplace include catalog content management, e-Commerce data transformation, integration and transaction processing, and ASP offerings’.

iEVM

iEVM (Internet Enterprise Value Management) applications provide the information required to optimise the performance of enterprise business operations.

Infobank InTrade

Infobank InTrade is the flagship e-Procurement product suite of Infobank, a UK headquartered e-Commerce solutions provider specialising in the provision of Web-based purchasing, supply and trading solutions. Their solutions, which include InTrade Purchaser, InTrade Supplier and InTrade e-Hub, are designed to meet the needs of organisations on both sides of the online trading relationship. Their main competitors include the US based Ariba and Commerce One.

Intelysis

Intelysis has emerged as a leader in the e-Marketplace sector of B2B. Its flagship product, Intelysis ConnectTrade, addresses both e-Procurement and e-Marketplaces. Intelysis ConnectTrade for e-Procurement is designed  for companies seeking to reduce expenses by implementing an online purchasing solution. Intelysis ConnectTrade for e-Marketplaces is designed for companies looking to generate revenues or increase customer service through the creation of a branded B2B marketplace. An example of an  e-Marketplace powered by Intelysis is autolink.com (a B2B e-marketplace for automotive dealers).

InterWorld Commerce Exchange

InterWorld, with its flagship product Commerce Exchange, is a leading provider of end-to-end e-commerce solutions.  Commerce Exchange enables companies to incorporate Internet-based commerce as part of their entire business in order to achieve operational efficiency.

Interwoven

Interwoven, with its flagship product TeamSite, is a leader provider of content management software and services. TeamSite manages the development and deployment of business-critical Web sites. Examples of eBusiness sites powered by TeamSite include those of Cisco Systems, Xerox and General Electric.

Iona iPortal Suite

the first multi-platform suite of products for developing enterprise portals

ITE’s

ITE’s ( Independent Trading Exchanges) are classified according to the level of  functionality they provide  (ie information, facilitation, transaction or integration). The best-positioned ITE’s (which include Altra Energy Technologies, Ventro Corporation, CheMatch.com, PlasticsNet.com & SciQuest.com) are in the Integration category where they are successfully leveraging existing relationships and are integrated with legacy ERP and SCM systems. 

LoudCloud

LoudCloud, established in 1999, is a company that builds and runs high-performance Internet infrastructure environments for Internet businesses. Its ‘Smart Cloud Services’, the world’s first application of automation technology (called ‘Opsware’) to backend Web-site operations, provides the functional components to make Web-sites work (including database and application server software) and also facilitates the reliable addition of new  functionality. 

M2M

M2M is a term used to describe marketplace-to-marketplace connectivity which enables the creation of global e-business networks. For example, i2’s TradeMatrix marketplaces are built on open standards and are able to interoperate with other marketplaces.

Mediasurface

Mediasurface Ltd is Europe’s largest provider of e-business content management software for Web Sites, intranets, extranets and emerging digital networks. Mediasurface 3 is the name of its latest, third generation of e-business content management solutions which was announced in May 2000. This latest version provides for WAP support and e-services integration with localisation and syndication providers. The Content Management Engine forms the functional centre of the Mediasurface 3 product suite.

Mercury Interactive

Mercury Interactives’ integrated WEB performance management solutions, which include Astra, LoadRunner & Topaz, monitor and test Internet applications thereby enabling e-businesses to enhance the user experience of their web sites.

Moai LiveExchange

Moai LiveExchange is Moai’s dynamic e-commerce solution enabling public or private auctions & trading exchanges for B2B, B2C & C-C marketplaces.

Multex.com

Multex.com is the Internet’s leading financial e-marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of financial services. It is provided by Multex.com, Inc., a global company that provides information and commerce enabling technology  and infrastructure, application services, Web hosting and online community services to the major financial marketplace participants (brokerage firms, investment banks, corporations, and individual and institutional investors). Focussing on 3 core business areas (B2B, B2C & ASP), it was chosen to be the ASP for TheMarkets.com, a new global financial portal for institutional investors. (see TheMarkets.com).

Net Markets

Net Markets (or B2B marketplaces, eMarkets, Internet trading exchanges or Net Market Makers) are Web-based electronic marketplaces on the public internet (e.g. Chemdex) that bring together fragmented groups of buyers and suppliers  to create larger, more efficient markets, either vertical (ie focussing on specific industries and/or goods) or horizontal.  By aligning buyers, suppliers and commerce service providers into seamless trading communities, they eliminate costly inefficiencies and deliver bottom line savings to all participants.

Net markets is one of the fastest growing and most strategic elements of B2B eCommerce and they are emerging to serve each point of every industry’s supply chain. The Gartner Group has predicted the creation of up to 10, 000 new markets by 2002.  It is believed that all businesses will eventually buy or sell on a marketplace if not hosting or being marginalised by one.

Net Perceptions

Net Perceptions is a provider realtime personalisation and precision merchandising software solutions for Internet and multi-channel retailers. These are based on technology that has been labelled ‘realtime recommendation technology’ which enables online businesses to predict an individual’s preferences and make specific recommendations accordingly.

OAG

is this the travel info portal/content solution provider

OI’s

OI’s (Online Intermediaries) are third parties that combine enabling B2B technology with market or process-specific expertise to facilitate trade. They are  emerging to extend the one-to-one reach provided by  ASP’s  to a  one-to-many-to-one reach, meaning that not only can companies access expensive  functionality but are able to share it with their trading community. OI’s extend the ASP model by providing content and offline services in addition to offering hosted e-commerce applications. (see ASP’s).

Open Market

Open Market’s integrated suite of e-business applications encompasses  content management (via its Content Server), CRM and commerce management. Its Content Server, formerly known as IPS, enables the multi-targeted delivery of content allowing a single asset to be published to multiple web sites, mobile phones and other Internet appliances.

OpenSite

OpenSite Technologies, a provider of dynamic e-commerce (dCommerce)  solutions, was acquired by Siebel Systems in April 2000. At the time of the acquisition, OpenSite Technologies had deployed over 600 dynamic pricing solutions (three times more than its nearest competitor) at a number of companies including VerticalNet and CNET. Opensite, by delivering  dynamic pricing solutions under the Siebel Systems’ name, will add dCommerce functionality to Siebel’s solutions. (see Siebel & d-Commerce).

Oracle E-Business Suite 11i

The Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, which was announced in xxx 2000,  is the first in the industry that supports all key business functions across the extended enterprise.  Described as a fully integrated e-business applications suite, the executive vice president of Oracle’s applications division, Ron Wohl,  commented that its arrival marked the end of the ERP era and the beginning of the e-business era. The new suite adds CRM and Order Management components to the already available 11i financials, HR, manufacturing, procurement, projects and supply chain components. Oracle believes that 11i can achieve what it says only the expensive and risky custom integration of several partial solutions such as Siebel, Ariba, Commerce One or SAP could achieve. 11i takes advantage of new Internet business practices that enable companies to put their customer interactions, internal operations and supply chains online. 

ORM

ORM (Operating Resource Management) is a term that has been introduced to describe the strategic purchase of operations resources. These may include,  for example, office supplies, industrial supplies, capital equipment, services or anything else that can be purchased more effectively using means such as aggregate buying, rapid vendor comparison, qualification for volume discounts and minimised transaction costs.  ORM projects, which can feed  directly , through costs of purchasing and selling, to the bottom line, will increasingly look to the support that is possible from technology, in particular e-business and decision-support.

Panagon eSolutions Portal

Panagon eSolutions’  B2B portals are dynamic content-driven, information portals designed to address a variety of business needs in the Financial Services and Insurance industries.  The underlying Panagon eContent and eProcess Infrastructure is used by many financial institutions to store and handle mission critical corporate documentation and for by major insurance providers for the processing of all of the claims processing workflow.

Paramount

Paramount Technologies, with its B2B-WorkPlace solution,  is a leading provider in B2B e-procurement solutions for the mid-market.  B2B-WorkPlace is a suite of e-procurement solutions that streamlines buying processes, improves cost management and utilises the Internet to automate corporate purchasing and employee self-service transactions, specifically time and expense reporting and project tracking.

PECOS Procurement Manager

PECOS Procurement Manager (PECOS.pm) is elcom.com’s family of eProcurement applications designed to automate the entire procurement process. It can be deployed as either PECOS Enterprise Procurement Manager (in which it is installed on the company Intranet behind the firewall) or  PECOS Internet Procurement Manager (in which it is remotely hosted by elcom.com). In March 2000, elcom.com announced it had signed a license to use OnDisplay’s CenterStage to power its next generation of remotely hosted and digital marketplace solutions.   

Peregrine

Peregrine Systems, a leader in e-Procurement, asset and infrastructure management, became through its acquisition of Harbinger Corporation in xxx the  largest provider of end-to-end business solutions.  This will enable large enterprises to purchase a full suite of e- trading and e-procurement solutions from a single global supplier, including integration to their asset management and other business systems. (see Harbinger). 

Personalisation

Personalisation is a term that is used to describe dynamic, customised content delivery in which Web pages are modified in accordance to the different needs of the viewer. It is usually based on a User ID, Group memberships and Subscription (where the user asks to be notified about certain types of content or certain events).

Personify

Personify is a provider of profiling, analytics and segmentation software that focuses on e-business data. Through the provision of detailed site visitor profiles and analytic applications, Personify aims to go beyond traditional data warehousing, thereby providing the basis for better decision making with regards to advertising, promotions, merchandising, site design, personalisation and customer service. In this way, Personify aims to enable companies increase their e-business revenues by enabling them to build closer links with their customers. Personify software can be used in conjunction with other e-business solutions including those from ATG, BroadVision, IBM, Kana, Microsoft, Siebel and Vignette.

Portolan

Portolan Commerce Solutions is the German-headquartered provider of iEVM & BI applications. By providing seamless integration with existing enterprise systems (CRM, ERP etc.), iEVM enables the enterprise to go from managing transactions to managing strategy.

Portum

Portum, headquartered in Frankfurt (Germany), is a service provider for B2B buyer and seller auctions. Established in 1999 by four former e-business consultants from IBM,  Portum provides buyers (Portum for Buyers), sellers (Portum for Sellers),  traders (Portum for Traders) and communities (Portum for Communities) with customised auction and trading platforms.

PubXpert

PubXpert (PublishingXpert) is Netscape’s publishing application for targeted customer content delivery on the World Wide Web. It is designed to accommodate large online communities and large collections of information, including the consumer online and media markets. By enabling personalised content delivery for groups and individuals, PubXpert allows companies to easily conduct business targeted for individual customers over the Internet.

RightWorks

RightWorks  Corporation, with its flagship B2B Exchange Platform, is a leading provider of B2B exchange software for powering digital marketplaces. Its deep e-procurement functionality supports highly complex transactions, business rules and processes that must be addressed in a trading exchange environment.  RightWorks 5, the latest version, has been architected to take advantage of the dynamic and distributed nature of the Internet. Powering a diversity of e-marketplaces that include FacilityPro.com, ShopNow.com and VerticalNet, it was selected by ICG Commerce in May 2000 as the core exchange technology for its digital marketplace, ICG CommerceNet.

Seagull

Dutch headquartered Seagull, with solutions such as WinJa (for the mainframe) and J Walk (for the AS/400), is a leading provider of e-business enabling technology that opens enterprise applications for Web, wireless and Windows access. 

‘sell side’

The term ‘sell side’ is used to describe applications and services that help companies to sell their products on-line. Sell-side applications are solutions that enable companies to sell their products and services over the Internet  (including those which address content management and transaction processing). They include transaction processors, payment processors, supply chain management applications, and catalogs. (see buy side)

Silknet

Silknet Software, a provider of customer-centric e-business applications & systems, is now part of Kana Communications following the signing of a merger agreement in Feb’ 2000.  This acquisition enables Kana to add Silknet’s customer facing Web-architected e-business platform and applications to its existing solutions for marketing, sales and service. (see Kana).

SilverStream eBusiness Platform

The SilverStream eBusiness Platform is SilverStream Software’s platform is a complete solution for building and deploying e-business applications for managing customer relationships and conducting online business transactions. Built atop the J2EE-based SilverStream Application Server, the eBusiness Platform also includes SilverStream ePortal (which provides a complete CRM solution with the inclusion of a library of components, personalisation and content creation/management) and SilverStream xCommerce (which is a family of B2B integration server products to connect enterprises with their trading partners and with e-marketplaces).

t-commerce

t-commerce is a term that has emerged to describe the purchasing of products or services through a TV. Many analysts believe that TV, helped by being viewed as an ‘old friend’, has  the potential to become a very powerful medium for the purchasing of consumer goods and as such pose a serious rival to e-commerce. This is illustrated by Forrester Research’s prediction that the global market for interactive TV (or iDTV) will be worth $20 billion by 2004 with $7 billion of this coming from t-commerce.

TeamSite

see Interwoven

TheMarkets.com

TheMarkets.com is a new global, information-rich financial portal for institutional investors created by a group of seven major investment banks including CS First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, MSDW (Morgan Stanley Dean Witter), Salomon Smith Barney, and UBS Warburg. Scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of 2000, it will provide institutional investors with a single-source destination  that offers real-time commingled global equity research, new issue information, news and market data, thereby eliminating the need to visit several disparate sites.

The use of state-of-the-art Internet technology and personalisation tools (which allow clients, such as portfolio managers and analysts, to organise, prioritise, and filter information) is designed to enable the member Investment Banks to move beyond traditional delivery options and help their clients work more productively. TheMarkets.com is expected to dramatically change the Institutional marketplace by becoming the premier global source of information for leading investment institutions.  Multex.com was selected as the ASP for the site. (see Multex.com)

Tradex

Tradex Technologies’ Commerce Center platform provides the foundation for the world’s leading digital marketplaces by enabling multiple buyers and suppliers to exchange goods, services and information in online trading communities. Ariba’s acquisition of Tradex in March 2000 will, through the integration of its IBX technologies into the Commerce Center solution, enable it to provide a single best of breed solution for Net Markets (see above).

TradeMatrix.com

TradeMatrix.com is i2 Technologies’ intelligent eBusiness portal that enables companies to deploy B2B and B2C e-marketplaces. Spanning multiple digital marketplaces, it provides a one-stop destination for online collaboration, dynamic trading, e-procurement, selling  & order fulfilment, logistics services & design services.

trading communities

Trading communities are Internet based hubs that focus on specific industry verticals or specific industry processes.

Tradeum

Tradeum is a provider of B2B platforms for supporting Internet-based marketplaces (on-line catalogs, auctions and exchanges.) In March 2000, it was announced that Tradeum was to be acquired by VerticalNet, thereby enabling it to add a core technology platform to its 55 vertical trade communities (industry specific Web-sites) and joint ventures. 

TradingDynamics

TradingDynamics, a leading provider of B2B Internet trading applications for Internet exchange, sales and procurement markets, was acquired by Ariba in November 1999.. These trading applications (dynamic pricing solutions) enable net market makers and corporations to quickly deploy and configure a range of dynamically priced markets including auctions, reverse auctions and exchanges. (see Net Markets and Ariba)

Twister

Twister is Brokat AG’s kernel product that provides a modular, integrated Enterprise Application Server for customer-oriented e-Business applications. Its Enterprise Application Server technology enables the integration of corporate IT systems into the e-environment. With additional applications such as X-AGENT (for customer interaction), Twister Profiling Service (for CRM) and EAI,  and Twister Integrated Tool Environment (for application development and administration), Twister provides the basis for an all-round solution.  (see Brokat)

UDDI

UDDI (Universal Discovery and Integration) is a current initiative being undertaken by a  consortium of 30 plus companies, led by Ariba, IBM and Microsoft, to design XML-based open standard specifications and operate a business registry that will enable the seamless integration of B2B e-commerce sites and Web services. When UDDI becomes widespread, it will enable marketplaces running on different platforms to be integrated seamlessly with each other. The UDDI project received a boost in September 2000 with Sun Microsystems announcement  that it would be joining the initiative. The UDDI project intends to develop a globally distributed UDDI Business Registry where businesses can publish how they want to conduct business and search for other businesses that provide the goods and services they need. The project intends to have the registry support services integrate with a wide set of existing core Internet technologies such as HTML, CORBA, RMI, ebXML, Java and Jini.  

Vantive eBusiness

Vantive eBusiness are role based solutions that are customisable  to the Vantive Enterprise applications. Vantive was acquired by PeopleSoft.

Vignette V/Series & StoryServer

Vignette’s new V/Series E-Business Platform provides an enterprise-ready foundation for delivering content, profiling and managing customer interactions across multiple channels (Internet, e-mail etc.). It new platform architecture enhances the e-Business capabilities of Vignette’s StoryServer line of products which will eventually be replaced by the new V/Series platform.

webMethods

webMethods is a leading provider of XML-based solutions for B2B e-commerce and integration.