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November
13 , 2000 By Demir Barlas, Line56 In
the latest estension of its strategy, B2B sell-side specialist SpaceWorks
has forged a partnership with Commerce One to contribute key solutions
to CommerceOne.net, an open marketplace that serves many different
B2B sectors. CommerceOne.net contains a trade directory listing
buyers, suppliers, and net market makers; an on-ramp to Commerce
One's Global Trading Web; and a suite of value-added business services
including procurement, payment, and auctions. SpaceWorks CEO Dave
MacSwain said ''Our traditional model is to sell a system to a major
manufacturer with browser access to its existing customers. But
we've also realized that there's a vital relationship between supplier
systems and e-marketplaces. We took that vision to Commerce One,
and they agreed.'' CommerceOne.net will use SpaceWorks' BusinessManager
suite, which specializes in handling complex order management. SpaceWorks
gives suppliers the ability to price and configure items by criteria
like technical specifications, customer history, and marketing promotions.
This is made possible by the solution's embedding of information
at the line-item level rather than the order-header level, creating
what MacSwain called ''line-item independence.'' For example, each
line-item can be coded with its own destination address or sourced
from a different supplier's back-end system. For a marketplace that
aggregates many suppliers, it is this last feature of line-item
independence that may be the most attractive, because it means easier
supplier integration -- which CommerceOne.net VP Roy Sattherthwaite
expected to translate into liquidity. ''By making it easier for
suppliers to move their business onto the Web, we plan to pave the
way for more organizations to achieve the tremendous benefits of
e-marketplaces.'' Although the deal is not exclusive on either end,
MacSwain said that CommerceOne.net was unaware of any other companies
that possessed SpaceWorks' specific expertise in complex order management,
which has been built up not only in the back rooms of software development
but also in real-world dealings with large manufacturers like BF
Goodrich, GE, Maytag, and Pratt & Whitney. MacSwain believes that
SpaceWorks' competence in dealing with these demanding business
buyers will serve his company well as it also transitions into serving
e-marketplaces like CommerceOne.net.
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