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October
2, 2000 By Michael Hardy SpaceWorks Inc., which designs high-end business-to-business e-commerce software for large industrial customers, believes it has turned a corner in its corporate development, thanks to its new deal with Pratt & Whitney. It's the second major customer SpaceWorks has signed among makers of the turbine engines used in jet planes, giving the Rockville, Md., company its first taste of dominating an industry space, said David MacSwain, the company's president and chief executive officer. Pratt & Whitney customers will be able to place and track orders online, as well as look up product availability or check shipping status. "We're one of those smaller companies that's trying to become a big company in a very strategic market where the competition is fierce," MacSwain said. "The slugging in the market gets very intense." SpaceWorks finalized the deal in July, but announced it in late September. It comes about one year after SpaceWorks won a similar contract from GE Aircraft, Pratt & Whitney's competitor and the largest maker of jet engines with about $12 billion in annual sales. SpaceWorks' participation in the company's e-business efforts was noted in a Wall Street Journal story, and that prompted the call from Pratt and Whitney, MacSwain said. "So now we have the No. 1 and No. 2 turbine engine manufacturers on the planet. No. 3 is Rolls-Royce, and we're in talks with them," he said. "We have a shot at becoming a standard or dominant vendor in the aircraft engine industry. For us to be able to carve out any one industry as a small company has huge implications for us." SpaceWorks has customers in other industries, including athletic footwear, appliances and telecom. But nowhere else does it have the two major players in a specialized vertical, MacSwain said. The company designed its products for large industrial businesses involving large numbers of parts to track. Industries like electronics and automotive engineering are ideal matches for SpaceWorks, he said. "It's industry knowledge as well as functionality. In the turbine engine business you're dealing with a lot of regulations. You're dealing with complex machines that have 30,000 parts." Founded in 1993, SpaceWorks employs about 250 people. MacSwain is contemplating an initial public offering by the middle of 2001, and expects to grow to 375 employees by the end of next year, whether or not the company is public by then.
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