Cahners and Aspect Development Form Manufacturing.Net, a new BtoB e-Marketplace
NEW YORK and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 2000
-- Cahners Business Information, a member of the Reed Elsevier plc group (NYSE: RUK and ENL), and Aspect Development Inc. (Nasdaq:ASDV), today announced the formation of a new company called Manufacturing.Net LLC that will provide the manufacturing industry with a powerful new e-marketplace.
The new company will be the manufacturing industry's premiere procurement Web site, serving all elements of the e-commerce value chain for industrial markets. Manufacturing.Net will unite Cahners' industry-leading content and Aspect's maintenance, repairs and operations (MRO) product databases, Express Catalog search technology and e-commerce applications. Buyers of industrial products and services will be able to learn, find, compare and buy in a secure, open e-commerce environment.
"We're revolutionizing the way MRO purchasing is done," said Cahners CEO Marc Teren. "We are the first to combine a complete e-business capability with a wealth of information for manufacturing professionals in an easily accessible format, including up-to-date product information, economic statistics and industry-specific news and research."
Romesh Wadhwani, Aspect chairman and CEO, said, "In establishing Manufacturing.Net, we have created a market-leading exchange for MRO procurement in the manufacturing marketplace. Our new company will supply information on millions of standard parts and products in an open environment. There is no other e-marketplace like this available in the world today."
The new company will be built around Manufacturing.net, a Web site Cahners launched in 1996 to provide content and community to the manufacturing sector. As a result of the joint venture between Cahners and Aspect Development, e-commerce applications, search technology and product databases will be added to the site.
Together Cahners and Aspect will fund the company as well as provide content, brands, software, hardware and other equipment. The new company will maintain offices in the Boston and Philadelphia areas.
Currently, Manufacturing.Net gets over 1 million visits monthly, has over 220,000 registered users and has more than 360 advertisers. In addition, more than 77,000 subscribers receive a customized weekly newsletter with proprietary content. The site provides more than 400,000 pages of editorial information from 23 leading industry publications, including the latest developments in automation and controls, manufacturing processes, design engineering and development, plant operations and the supply chain. These assets, proven track record and customer base will be combined with Aspect's market reach of more than 180 leading manufacturing companies such as Ford, Compaq, Lucent, IBM and Shell Oil.
Manufacturing.Net offers buyers and sellers several unique advantages:
-- Cahners' branded content
-- Aspect's leading e-commerce solutions
-- Strategic marketing support
-- An open environment, free to buyers, which also provides an effective marketing channel for sellers
-- An established business
-- A highly experienced management team with expertise in the industrial buying process and the Internet
-- Established partnerships with other portals, end users, e-commerce technology companies and information services such as Lexis-Nexis
The limited-liability company agreement creates a new business model unlike any other in the BtoB (business-to-business) industry. Previously, buyers were limited to product-specific sites, reducing their purchasing power when buying multiple products or services. Additionally, these vertical marketplaces had limited industry reach. Manufacturing.Net and Aspect remove these limitations by joining together to provide an end-to-end "one-stop shop" for the manufacturing market. In this way, buyers and sellers have equal access to best-of-breed market sites, suppliers and products.
"Manufacturing.Net's ability to tap into Aspect's growing base of strategic partnerships will greatly accelerate the site's growth," said John Sateja, senior vice president of marketing and business development for Manufacturing.Net. "Together, we are shaping the next generation of e-commerce for the manufacturing market by creating a single source solution for buyers and sellers."
The creation of Manufacturing.Net LLC is the 11th acquisition or equity investment announced by Cahners in the last year. Other recent acquisitions or investments announced include the CMD Group, LA411, MarketCast, MicroDesign Resources, Publisher's Video Group, the Ashley Group, PartMiner and the following magazines: rpm, Plants Sites & Parks and Casual Living. On March 27, Cahners announced an agreement to acquire CMD Group, a leading supplier of information to the construction industry, for $299.5 million.
About Cahners
Cahners Business Information (www.cahners.com) is a leading U.S. provider of business information to 16 vertical markets, including building and construction, entertainment, manufacturing and retail. Cahners' rich content portfolio encompasses 140 Web sites as well as Variety, Publishers Weekly, Design News, Industrial Distribution and 126 other market-leading business-to-business magazines. Cahners developed the leading business-to-business Web portals e-inSITE in the electronics industry, Manufacturing.net in manufacturing as well as Buildingteam.com and HousingZone.com in construction.
Cahners is a member of the Reed Elsevier plc group (www.reed-elsevier.com), a world leading publisher and information provider. Reed Elsevier plc is owned equally by Reed International P.L.C (NYSE:RUK) and Elsevier NV (NYSE:ENL). Operating in the scientific, legal and business-to-business industry sectors, Reed Elsevier provides high value and flexible information solutions to professional end users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet as a delivery method. Building on its strong position in key markets and its established brands and content, the company is investing aggressively in the migration of its portfolio to electronic delivery, with links to a wider range of content-related services and transactional capabilities.
About Manufacturing.Net
Manufacturing.Net is the leading business-to-business Internet marketplace serving companies and professionals seeking an integrated online e-procurement system to perform planned and individual spot buys safely and efficiently. The site is an open, integrated manufacturing e-marketplace that combines trusted content from the most comprehensive selection of suppliers with secure real-time transactions. It is the only online resource that supports the entire manufacturing supply chain, from planning and purchasing to shipping and delivery.
The site combines content from 23 Cahners manufacturing publications with a SuperCatalog of more than 1.8 million total products, services and suppliers throughout the entire manufacturing supply chain, all searchable by keyword, product, or company name. Manufacturing.Net delivers the industry's most comprehensive information resource for professionals in the (OEM) original equipment manufacturer and (MRO) maintenance, repair, and operations processing industries. For more information, please visit www.Manufacturing.net.
About Aspect Development
Aspect, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., is the leading global provider of collaborative solutions for business-to-business e-commerce and inbound supply for the enterprise and its trading partners. Aspect solutions provide decision support and content for procurement, product development, operations, e-commerce, and marketplaces. Aspect delivers the largest value proposition of any BtoB e-commerce solution by reducing production and non-production/MRO spend and increasing revenue and market share by accelerating new product introduction. More than 180 of the world's largest companies, with combined annual revenue of $1 trillion and $500 billion in annual inbound supply spend, are all customers of Aspect. For further information on Aspect, visit at aspectdv.com. |
