Freemarkets selects Intel and Microsoft to power global B2B e-marketplace

FreeMarkets, the world`s largest B2B eMarketplace, has announced a deal with Microsoft and Intel which will see the company using Intel-based servers running Windows 2000 and Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers to power its global B2B eMarketplace. This announcement follows close on the heels of another significant e-business deal in which Lycos.com, the fourth most visited site in the US, adopted Intel-based servers running off the Windows 2000 platform.

According to the Garry Hodgson, Internet development group director at Microsoft South Africa, these two international deals are an indication of Microsoft`s future business direction, both internationally and locally. "Across the globe we are seeing an increase in the number of dot-com related opportunities for which Microsoft technology is being adopted over competitors` products. The primary reasons given by customers for this is the extensive use of XML in our products, the scaleability and stability of the Microsoft product set and the fact that Microsoft offers an integrated Web platform."

Freemarkets, which brings together buyers from Global 1000 companies with suppliers from around the world to deliver results in the form of savings and reductions in process time, cites similar reasons for going the Microsoft-Intel route. The combination of Intel-based servers and Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers software delivers the scalability and reliability FreeMarkets requires to create global auctions for the millions of dollars` worth of business that flow through its eMarketplace daily. FreeMarkets has conducted 5 000 online auctions for more than $7.6 billion worth of goods and services to date, creating estimated savings of nearly $1.5 billion for its customers. To continue its track record of delivering results, FreeMarkets requires an extremely reliable platform that can scale to meet tremendous growth in both the number of users and the volume of business conducted through its eMarketplace.

"Hundreds of millions of dollars in business are at stake every day in the FreeMarkets B2B eMarketplace and real-time information sharing is critical," said John Benzinger, FreeMarkets director of technical operations. "We require a reliable platform with the ability to scale to meet our growth. By implementing best-of-breed products such as Intel-based servers and Microsoft`s .NET Enterprise servers, we can address this need in a cost-effective manner, while maintaining high-quality performance."

As part of its strategy to incorporate best-of-breed technologies throughout its operations, FreeMarkets is utilizing the enterprise-ready platform featuring Intel-based Compaq Proliant ML 370 2-way and 8500 servers with 4-, and 8-way Pentium III Xeon processors, and the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system. In addition, the company has implemented Microsoft .NET Enterprise Servers, an integrated Web solution platform incorporating Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, SQL Server 2000, COM+, ASP, and the Visual Studio development tools to meet the performance and availability demands of its expanding B2B eMarketplace.

"The collaboration between Intel and Microsoft offers our customers, including those in South Africa, a flexible e-business architecture to accelerate their time to deployment with new Internet services," says Colin Purkis, eBusiness architecture manager, Intel South Africa. "FreeMarkets is a great example of a company that has benefited from the modular `scale-out` methodology that makes Intel-based servers a scalable and reliable platform for today`s fast-growing Internet economy."

"When experiencing `hyper` growth, our customers rightly demand that we provide business solutions that are scalable, reliable, and that give a growing e-business the agility it needs to succeed in the next phase of the Internet," says Hodgson. "In the local market, Microsoft products, solutions and technical expertise are being used in the development of a number of exciting new online businesses like MyLife.co.za, Tutuka.com, Digitalmall.com, Digitalpalnet.co.za and many others, all of which have aggressive growth targets. In the next year, we anticipate that our revenue from dot-com related projects will grow exponentially, certainly more quickly than any other part of our business. I have no doubt some of our local clients will become international case studies of e-business success stories," concludes Hodgson.