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To: lee kramer who wrote (72749)	11/22/1999 11:38:00 AM
From: profit_guy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

ASDV...the most powerful business-to-business (B-to-B) eCommerce site for researching and buying manufacturing goods and services... MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and NEW YORK, Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspect Development, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASDV - news) and Cahners Business Information, a subsidiary of Reed Elsevier (NYSE: RUK - news and ENL - news), have signed a letter of intent to form Manufacturing.net, a joint venture that will combine their strengths into the most powerful business-to-business (B-to-B) eCommerce site for researching and buying manufacturing goods and services, including materials and supplies used in maintenance, repair and operations (MRO). The www.manufacturing.net B-to-B portal currently operated by Cahners will become part of the joint venture and will be upgraded to full eCommerce functionality by year-end.

To: lee kramer who wrote (72749)	11/22/1999 2:20:00 PM
From: Lane Hall-Witt	Respond to of 120523

I actually think rising interest rates, more than any other factor, represents the greatest inflationary threat we face today, for two reasons: (1) Easy credit has encouraged companies to invest in the technologies that have done so much to improve productivity during the last decade. Think about the Internet and the efficiencies it has already introduced into the economy. My firm belief is that we ain't seen nuthin' yet. Businesses are just beginning to use the Net for procurement and for supply-chain management, and the savings in these areas dwarf savings we've seen elsewhere. CNQR cut Monsanto's cost for processing travel-reimbursement paperwork from $30+ to $8 per item: multiply that by 200,000 items processed per year, and you start to see the kind of savings we're looking at here. In addition to B2B commerce, the proliferation of wireless technologies is going to introduce huge savings into the corporate world, also. Think about utility meters transmitting continuous streams of usage data to a central database that helps manage resource allocation, billing, etc. This is a long way of getting to my point, which is: if companies can't get the credit necessary to develop and implement these technologies, then we won't be able to benefit from the productivity gains these technologies promise to make available. This will be a huge blow and, IMO, would hasten the return of inflation. (2) Word has it the Fed is using interest-rate policy to address the trade imbalance. Imports have clearly exerted deflationary forces throughout the U.S. economy, and any concerted attempt to stop the flow of goods from abroad would, I think, be inflationary. If we cut ourselves off from the global economy, we would in effect be cutting ourselves off from the supply of overseas labor and basic commodities that have helped keep domestic cost pressures down.