Today's digital marketplaces are plagued by key limiting factors, including a low level of participation by small buyers and sellers and a narrow choice of transaction types. This is further compounded by difficulty in interconnecting smoothly with each other and an inability to effectively provide services and content across multiple marketplaces.
"There is an acute need for a reliable and scalable platform that provides market makers with the necessary business to business (B2B) components for open digital marketplaces," says Duncan Peruch, Sun-Netscape Alliance sales manager at Sun Microsystems SA.
"Such a platform would also have to be easily extensible and customisable to meet the specific requirements of each market being addressed," he adds.
iPlanet's Market Maker platform, expected to arrive here by Spring, could prove to be the solution dynamic market makers are looking for.
This new offering from the Sun-Netscape Alliance will help leading enterprises, service providers and dot com startups to create and operate the next generation of digital marketplaces.
Unlike current offerings, iPlanet Market Maker is not a marketplace, but a market platform complemented by services delivered by external service providers in selected industries. It provides users with a choice of application service providers and Internet service providers for hosting services.
In addition, it offers a choice of vertical content providers, horizontal services providers, and systems integrators to help market makers rapidly build their own independent marketplaces.
"The Java-technology based platform leverages open standards and supports static and dynamic pricing transaction types. It also provides all the services required to operate seamlessly and smoothly in the Net economy," Peruch says.
Its integrated suite of out-of-the-box B2B modules can be used to aggregate supplier catalogues, run forward and reverse auctions, participate in online negotiations and implement multiple pricing models.
The modules also facilitate customising and delivering content to participants, offer business directories, and provide sophisticated membership capabilities and community services.
They are combined with a customisable portal layer to provide personalised views and content to users. The platform is based on open standards such as J2EE technology, HTTP, LDAP and XML.
Share
