Bruce,
As a reminder, I haven't studied the bueisness models of Ariba and Commerce One. That post was new to me and the following was surprising:
Because ARBA is based on proprietary technology, their eProcurement software requires the CTO to sign-off on yet another app to be delivered throughout the procurement
organisations' desktops, along with the requisite LAN, WAN and server implications. CMRC's software is an HTML application that can be used with the standard Internet
browser ? no special deployment required, just start Internet Explorer, sign-in and start buying.
If I understand that correctly, CMRC is not in a gorilla game by virtue of the fact that it's product is not proprietary. Yet they compete directly with Ariba who is in a gorilla game by virtue of the fact that theirs is proprietary.
To take it one step farter, I didn't realize that CMRC receives a slice of every transaction that takes place in the marketplace
The nature of the revenue streams for CMRC tells me that there is nothing about a gorilla game going on. Everything looks very much like a godzilla game for CMRC except that the switching costs might be fairly high.
Does Ariba also get a slice of the action? If so, their model is very much like Gemstar's -- proprietary software that commands a slice of the action that grows daily because of the networks effects. That's a strong gorilla game with much more power than a wannabe godzilla.
To take that one step farther, we can conclude that there are two business processes going on in this space -- online procurement software and B2B transactions. It's vital that we understand the business models of each to appreciate the extent to which each company is (or isn't) operating in each of those two categories.
I'm not asking that you spend a lot of time doing my research for me, but if you or someone else has information about that, I'd be grateful for your thoughts.
--Mike Buckley
OFF-TOPIC P. S. Since the subject of copyright law has come to the fore, those laws also make it a no-no to copy a post from one forum to another. The SIs and Motley Fools of the world are spending money to attract people like you and me to generate content at their sites. That content attracts even more people like you and me in a network-effects kind of way, making it possible for them to increase their advertising revenue. That's why they prefer that we provide links to the posts instead of copying their posts, causing people to visit their sites. |
