Greg
Rohit Khare wrote:
>
> [Any idea what the heck this is? waaay too much bullshit at their site... RK]
>
> Web trading hub moves a step closer to reality
> By Jim Kerstetter, PC Week Online
> March 29, 1999 9:00 AM ET
>
> Commerce One Inc. has laid the foundation for a major
> business-to-business Web trading hub, long the Holy Grail of online
> commerce.
> The Walnut Creek, Calif., developer this week will unveil MarketSite
> 3.0, procurement software designed to facilitate a variety of
> relationships and transactions for companies doing business on the
> Web.
> MarketSite promises to significantly extend the reach of online
> merchants and the buying options of customers. Via the portal site,
> called MarketSite.net, buyers will be able to directly link to office
> supply companies such as Office Depot Inc. or vertical trading sites
> such as Grainger.com, a manufacturing hub.
> If successful, MarketSite could become the launch pad for a series of
> Web sites that link any corporation--not just vertical industries
> such as steel and health care--into a business-to-business
> marketplace.
> "A larger number of our customers are online with us today," said
> Monica Luechtfeld, vice president of marketing for Office Depot's
> Business Services Division, in Delray Beach, Fla. "But for them to
> realize the payoff of automating and using technology to purchase
> through the Web, they must do it with more vendors and across more of
> their divisions, and do it globally."
>
> Commerce One's ambitious project is building off what some observers
> considered an Achilles' heel of its buy-side commerce software.
> Commerce One previously used MarketSite as a central repository of
> product data for its software users. The idea was to take the burden
> of constant catalog updates out of the hands of users. But the
> downside was complexity and a lack of control by the customer.
> The new iteration of MarketSite removes much of that complexity.
> Using a free Extensible Markup Language tool called the XML Commerce
> Connector, all companies--not just those that are using Commerce One
> software--will be able to tie their buying applications into the
> MarketSite portal.
> The XML tool will enable any buy-side application to be linked to
> MarketSite. The same holds for vertical sites. The only cost for a
> purchasing organization to tie into MarketSite is for XML integration
> work.
> For suppliers, Commerce One will charge a flat fee, ranging from 25
> cents to $2 per transaction, and will provide hosting services so
> businesses don't have to install the purchasing software on their
> own. Several Internet service providers, including MCI WorldCom Inc.,
> British Telecom and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., will host
> the site.
> Commerce One is not alone in offering business-to-business electronic
> commerce sites for its customers. Ariba Inc. and Intelisys Electronic
> Commerce LLC, for example, launched Ariba.com and Intelisys.com,
> respectively, within the last month. Both sites, at least
> technically, could be linked to MarketSite via XML.
> Commerce One officials promise to learn from the mistakes of past
> failed attempts at business-to-business sites. "We've learned our
> lessons from people like Industry.Net," said Chuck Donchess, vice
> president of marketing and business development at Commerce One. One
> lesson: Build a sound technological foundation before focusing on the
> business relationships.
> Industry.Net learned its lessons the hard way. It declared bankruptcy
> more than two years ago under the leadership of former Lotus
> Development Corp. CEO Jim Manzi before being purchased by Information
> Handling Services Inc., of Boulder, Colo.
> Today, Industry.Net publishes catalogs and lines up distributors for
> more than 20,000 manufacturers in the engineering community.
> For all of these companies--Commerce One, Ariba, Intelisys and
> Industry.Net--the business-to-business trading model is the next
> frontier. If merchants want to succeed at business commerce, they
> will have to join large trading communities that make integration
> easy.
> "It's not so hard to pick the top five or so companies to [trade]
> with," said David Alschuler, an analyst at Aberdeen Group, in Boston.
> "But to get 100 or 200 customers in line is an incredibly big and
> labor-intensive job."
>
> http://www.commerceone.com/solutions/marketsite.htm
> Solutions: MarketSite
> Commerce One MarketSite 3.0 Open Marketplace Platform is the next
> generation marketplace platform that provides an open, low cost
> solution for market makers (e.g., teleco's, aggregators, and
> distributors) to deploy open, interoperable marketplaces.
> MarketSite 3.0 is comprised of software and commerce services that
> enable trading partners to seamlessly exchange business information
> and provide access to value-added services that are key to
> efficiently conducting commerce, including a cost effective way to
> manage supplier catalog content.
> Commerce One MarketSite.net, B to B Marketplace Portal, is the first
> marketplace built on Commerce One MarketSite 3.0 Open Marketplace
> Platform. It is an open business-to-business marketplace portal for
> electronic procurement providing unprecedented commerce services and
> the ability to interoperate with numerous buying and selling
> applications.
> Commerce One is working with BT to establish a marketplace in the
> U.K. as well as other market makers to establish geographical and
> vertical marketplaces (see press releases British Telecommunications
> and Commerce One in E-Business Licensing Deal and Commerce One
> Collaborates with NTT to Deliver Open Electronic Commerce Portal for
> Japanese Market). Each marketplace that is developed on MarketSite
> will interoperate with MarketSite.net to form the largest open
> marketplace in the world, allowing users anywhere to trade with
> partners connected to any marketplace and access the services offered
> through each marketplace.
>
> ...
>
> Distributed Marketplace Architecture
> To enable marketplace-to-marketplace integration, MarketSite 3.0
> deploys a unique feature, Distributed Marketplace Architecture (DMA).
> DMA is an open XML e-commerce architecture which enables marketplaces
> to integrate in the same manner trading partners integrate into a
> marketplace. DMA provides distributed services to facilitate the
> interoperability of marketplaces based on a published BID (Business
> Interface Definition), which is an XML document interface into the
> marketplace.
> Non-MarketSite 3.0 based marketplaces can integrate using the
> MarketSite XML Commerce Connector and by defining the semantics of
> how the marketplace will conduct commerce. MarketSite 3.0 deploys an
> integration service for the translation and conversion between data
> standards.
> XML Content Pipeline
> The MarketSite XML Content Pipeline represents the latest technology
> in providing a comprehensive set of tools to manage the collection
> and publishing of catalog content. The XML Content Pipeline can be
> hosted or distributed and provides complete flexibility in the
> content management cycle for the marketplace manager or trading
> partner utilizing the tools.
> The XML Content Pipeline provides an extensible pipeline process for
> the collection and publishing of content. Once the XML Content
> Pipeline has processed catalog content, the catalog can be published
> to the marketplace and made available to buyers.
> MarketSite 3.0 Features
>
> * Open - Multiple buying and selling applications
> * Breakthrough XML technology for interoperability with
> existing trading communities and applications
> * Managed content for buyers and suppliers
> * Automated transaction support
> * Business Services - Integrated commerce capabilities from
> multiple providers (freight, tax and payment)
> * Hosted Applications for buyers and sellers at any stage of
> electronic commerce readiness
>
> Deployment and Connectivity Specifications
> MarketSite 3.0 Open Marketplace Platform supports standard
> Microsoft/Intel computing environments. All communications are
> facilitated through industry standard protocols including TCP/IP,
> HTTP, and ODBC.