Commerce One Bows New Partnerships

E-marketplace solution provider Commerce One Inc. Monday completed its
acquisition of AppNet, a provider of end-to-end Internet professional
services.

The acquisition, valued at $2 billion, was first announced in late June.
The deal is structured as a tax-free, stock-for-stock exchange and will be
accounted for as a purchase transaction.

“With this acquisition, we will have a whole new set of services and
consulting capabilities that will help the emarketplace get liquid much
faster,” said Chuck Donchess, executive vice president and chief strategy
officer, Commerce One .

He added that the relationship will additionally reduce the time for
liquidity for marketplaces, accelerate supplier adoption and drive greater
business functionality through in-depth supply chain integration.

The two companies are already collaborating on several joint customer
efforts, including Pantellows, Exostar, Trade-Ranger, Covisint and the
Metals and Mining Exchange.

The announcement was made at “elink 2000 Las Vegas: The Smartest Way from
B2B,” a trade show event focusing on ecommerce efforts in information
technology, marketing and finance.

During the press conference, Donchess made several announcements,
including:

• Commerce One and German enterprise-software maker SAPMarkets have
  finalized plans to merge their products. The vendors, which unveiled their
  alliance in June, are rolling out a solution for Cable & Wireless, which is
  designed to improve the efficiency of Cable & Wireless’ e-procurement
  program.
• The development the Commerce One Affiliate Program designed to syndicate
  business services for e-marketplaces. More than 40 business services
  providers have signed on to participate in the program. Their services are
  now available directly to buyers and suppliers on the next generation of Commerce One.net and through
  syndication to other e-marketplaces.

“It is expected that business service syndication will make it easy for
e-marketplace operators to tap into the services their buyers and suppliers
need to conduct e-commerce without the lengthy process of identifying,
negotiating and partnering with business service providers,” said Dochness.

“We have established new relationships with leading procurement, auction,
planning, financial and business analysis service providers and is
syndicating these services through Commerce One.net, providing customer
access to high quality business services.” he said. “This portfolio of
business services is open, enabling B2B e-commerce regardless of the type of
platform used by the trading partners.”

The new program takes advantage the Commerce One Business Services
Framework, a core technology component of the company’s e-marketplace
solutions, including the recently announced MarketSet from SAPMarkets &
Commerce One.

As part of the two companies’ strategic alliance, SAPMarkets will bring
additional new members to the Commerce One Affiliate Program.

In related news, it was also announced Monday that Commerce One is
powering the pilot of eHITEX, an e-marketplace for the high-tech industry.
The marketplace is designed to improve supply chain efficiency and
procurement among its founding members, their buyers and suppliers.

eHITEX founding members include without limitation Agilent, AMD, Canon,
Compaq, Gateway, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Quantum, Samsung, SCI
Systems, Solectron, Synnex, Tatung, and Western Digital. The collective
annual procurement spending of the eHITEX partners exceeds $300 billion.

It was also announced that Commerce One and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC have established preliminary plans to expand their existing relationship and form a strategic global alliance.

Through the partnership, the companies plan to create emarketplaces for B2

B and electronic commerce. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young intend to implement Commerce One’s ecommerce solutions for companies across a variety of industries, including financial services, healthcare and high tech.