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Technology Stocks : Ariba Technologies (Nasdaq-ARBA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sonki who wrote (619)	12/15/1999 10:17:00 PM
From: jay silberman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2110

from briefing.com: 10:12 ET ****** Ariba (ARBA) 231 3/8 -2 7/8: The action in B2B continues at a frenzied pace; the Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that Ariba is in talks to acquire Tradex Technologies for about $1.65 bln. We have discussed Ariba many times -- the company generates most of its revenue from the sale of software for MRO (maintenance, repairs, and operations) procurement, but is attempting to build up its Ariba.com marketplace. Thus far, however, rival Commerce One (CMRC) has proved itself more adept at developing online marketplaces to complement procurement software sales. That's where Tradex comes in. The privately held company is one of the early leaders in developing software to build online marketplaces. The fit here is good -- Ariba's ORMS platform focusses on internal management of procurement, T&E expenses, and service requests, while the Tradex platform is geared towards creating the marketplace for procurement, including transactions processing and content management. Acquiring Tradex could help Ariba's efforts to attract companies to its marketplaces. There is no doubt that Commerce One's aggressive moves in the marketplace area have provided inspiration for Ariba. As recently as early August, Ariba's market cap was more than five times that of Commerce One. This gap began to narrow in earnest after Commerce One's deal to set up the General Motor's (GM) MarketSite, even though GM already used Ariba software. Just recently, CMRC briefly exceeded ARBA's market cap and currently they are roughly the same. Ariba needs to become more aggressive in creating online marketplaces, and a Tradex acquisition would be a step in the right direction. Though Ariba is trading lower today, that is more of a function of the ongoing profit-taking in technology stocks generally and B2B specifically than it is a reflection of the market's response to the Tradex speculation. - GJ