The Internet economy globally and its users are set to benefit substantially from today's announce of a preliminary agreement between inter-enterprise software solutions company, SAP and Commerce One, a leader in global e-commerce solutions.
The two companies announced in the United States today that they will jointly deliver the next-generation e-business marketplace solution for the Internet economy.
The to-be-named marketplace suite promises to revolutionise business by offering companies one-stop shopping for the entire range of e-business marketplace services. The marketplace suite will leverage the companies' respective strengths and create unprecedented opportunities for customers. Commerce One will provide the marketplace infrastructure that enables companies to establish and operate trading portals, and SAP will provide functionality in the areas of supply chain management, product life-cycle management, customer relationship management and business intelligence.
The resultant joint offering will include the best technologies and applications of both companies for e-business marketplaces. Technology and applications will be provided by SAP and delivered by Commerce One and SAP through joint development, sales and marketing, beginning immediately. The marketplace suite will provide customers with highly capable, open marketplace technology; e-business applications; and delivery capabilities in a single solution.
Based on a common architecture, these services will range from collaborative design through fulfillment, including industry-based content services and business intelligence. The marketplace suite will transform linear, serial supply chains to parallel, collaborative communities, dramatically reducing cycle times, improving customer relationships and increasing productivity for businesses worldwide.
Commenting on the announcement, Dean Griffin, general manager: marketing of SAP Africa, says it is an expression of SAP's stated collaborative-business (c-business) strategy. "Our focus is on delivering software specifically in our areas of core competence. Through this agreement, we are bringing to our customers the ideal e-commerce solution in a truly integrated environment."
Griffin adds that the announcement is the culmination of extensive discussions between the two organisations. "Locally, we are extremely excited and are looking forward to leveraging this for the benefit of our customers. We will be holding discussions with the local Commerce One distributors on how this will be rolled out within the South African market."
"With the union of efforts between the companies, we will be able to achieve our mutual vision of a frictionless economy," says Hasso Plattner, co-chairman and CEO of SAP AG. "Our 13 000 customers want a single, market-leading e-business marketplace solution to harness the power of the Internet. SAP and Commerce One will deliver this solution."
"This 'dream team' of industry leaders will deliver the collaborative marketplace of the future," says Mark Hoffman, chairman of the board and CEO of Commerce One. "Our exchange partners worldwide are demanding industry-leading e-business applications. Our relationship with SAP adds tremendous value across a broad range of functionality. This is a huge win for the entire Internet economy."
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
The marketplace suite will combine Commerce One's industry-leading MarketSite Portal Solution, including the Exchange Operating System, Auction Services and Content Engine, with industry-leading mySAP.com e-business applications for advanced planning and optimisation, product life-cycle management and business information warehousing. The companies also will join forces to develop a next-generation e-procurement solution based on customer requirements as part of the marketplace suite.
The marketplace suite will adopt Commerce One's XML Common Business Library (xCBL), an industry-standard set of XML building blocks, and a document framework that provides open integration with all buying and selling applications, as well as open integration with business applications in every industry. In addition, the companies will extend xCBL to incorporate the SAP(tm) Business Application Programming Interfaces(tm) (BAPIs), enhancing end-to-end business processes over the Internet.
In the United States, customers of SAP and Commerce One will enjoy a smooth transition to front-office and marketplace e-business solutions for the new economy, and will be able to participate immediately in the Global Trading Web, the world's largest business-to-business trading community. With procurement software, all companies running supported SAP enterprise software will be able to connect to the new marketplace suite without upgrading their internal systems.
To ensure the rapid, global deployment of the marketplace suite, the series of agreements to be finalised by the companies will result in the purchase by SAP of approximately $250 million worth of unregistered common stock in Commerce One as well as royalty sharing between the parties over the three-year term of the agreements. In addition, the companies will closely collaborate on new technologies for the marketplace solution.
The companies will demonstrate live prototypes of business scenarios based on the joint offering at SAPPHIRE 2000 Las Vegas, the SAP customer conference for the Americas region, held June 14-16.
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Commerce One
Commerce One is the leader in global e-commerce solutions for business. Through its products, portals and services, Commerce One creates access to worldwide markets, allowing anyone to buy from anyone, any time, anywhere. The Commerce One Global Trading Web is the world's largest business-to-business trading community. Comprised of many open e-marketplaces, the Global Trading Web provides unprecedented economies of scale for buying organizations, suppliers and service providers worldwide. Commerce One is located in Pleasanton, Calif., and can be reached by phone at (800) 308-3838 or (925) 520-6000, or via the Internet at http://www.commerceone.com.
SAPMarkets
SAPMarkets Inc., an SAP AG subsidiary based in Palo Alto, Calif., spearheads all mySAP.com Marketplace (http://www.mysap.com) efforts of SAP. These electronic marketplaces enable enterprises of all sizes and industries to efficiently conduct collaborative business: Companies' systems and employees are dynamically linked through mySAP.com Marketplaces, allowing them to seamlessly work together over the Internet and across company boundaries. Examples of such seamless cooperation include the dynamic linking of buyers and sellers, auctioning, tendering, as well as collaborative forecasting and engineering across enterprise boundaries. More information is available at http://www.sapmarkets.com.
SAP
As the market leader of inter-enterprise software solutions, SAP is leveraging its strength in industry-focused business software and the world's largest enterprise software customer base to deliver mySAP.com. mySAP.com provides an open collaborative business environment of personalized solutions on demand. This enables companies of all sizes and industries to fully engage their employees, customers and partners to capitalize upon the new Internet economy. mySAP.com allows people to harness the power of the Internet to work smarter, better and faster by optimizing supply chains, managing strategic relationships, reducing time to market, sharing virtual information, and increasing productivity and shareholder value. SAP is listed on several exchanges including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." The SAP World Wide Web site can be found at http://www.sap.com.