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To: Jan Crawley who wrote (62909)	6/16/1999 3:13:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

I will not buy now coz I am holding Amzn/yhoo longs. I am just speculating with my trading a/c with a few moving targets. If I get lucky and sell Yhoo @151 tomorrow or Friday and Driv remains at 22 3/4 then I may gamble on driv for a few days. Jan, Thank you. DRIV is relatively week????

To: Jan Crawley who wrote (62909)	6/16/1999 10:33:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

By Nicole Volpe NEW YORK, June 16 (Reuters) - Online auctions are known as places you can buy Beanie Babies and Elvis memorabilia, but what about the giant corporation that wants to purchase millions of plastic injection parts to make washing machines? FreeMarkets, a Pittsburgh-based business-to-business online auctioneer, is seeking to lower the prices large businesses pay for components and raw materials by making potential suppliers bid for contracts. "This is really changing the way corporations do business," FreeMarkets' Marketing Director Kevin Young told Reuters. "This is turbocharging competition in the marketplace for materials." FreeMarkets differentiates itself from other business-to-business auctioneers such as VerticalNet Inc. <VERT.O> by operating from the buyer's side. In other words, suppliers bid down to the lowest price, while other auctioneers have buyers bid upward for suppliers' products. The result: price margins are cut to the bone and products like circuit boards become more of a commodity. The company has been handling materials for utilities, heavy manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and other industries, as well as the public sector. It clients include the state of Pennsylvania and United Technologies Corp. <UTX.N>, whose products range from elevators to jet engines. Founder Glen Meakem left General Electric Co. <GE.N> in 1995 to form FreeMarkets, which has gone through two rounds of financing. The latest, led by Goldman Sachs in April, raised $11 million, bringing total financing for the company to $24 million. Young said an initial public offering was an option under consideration. The FreeMarkets bidding session, carried out over a secure virtual private network, begins with an average of 30 suppliers. The suppliers bid downwards, often narrowing the field to two contenders within an hour or so. The result is a price lower than FreeMarkets clients were accustomed to paying. "We set up the market so it is as competitive as it can be," said Young, adding that collusion among suppliers can be a problem in markets with few sources. "We try to mix it up, by adding other suppliers, from Asia, for instance." Clients save up to 38 percent on electronics components, while insulation material, already something of a commodity, can bring savings of about 6 percent, he said. In most cases, FreeMarkets charges its fees as a percentage of volume sourced through the process. The company also charges rates for extra investigation of suppliers by over 100 "market makers," consultants and engineers who work in the field. They find suppliers, gather information about the products and identify potential cost savings. "The customer buying coal will know what grade of coal they are bidding for, so they can compare with other suppliers in an apples-to-apples comparison," said Young. He said the company has about cornered the coal market, with most East Coast and Western coal suppliers using the auction system. FreeMarkets is looking to expand outside the United States, especially in Europe. It opened an office in Brussels, Belgium, in October. 859-1700)) REUTERS Rtr 18:36 06-16-99