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To: tinkershaw who wrote (37068)	12/27/2000 8:01:25 AM
From: Brian K Crawford	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

So what investing advice does my wife (A B2B software consultant give) buy Oracle (for some reason she loves Oracle through and through) and buy Tibco or other "middleware" software company. I would be interested in reading more of the reasoning behind the B2B consultant's recommendations. Any chance of inviting her to put up a post on it? Thanks, Brian

To: tinkershaw who wrote (37068)	12/27/2000 9:55:57 AM
From: mtnlady	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Thanks Tinker - very informative post. "Now Tibco, may be a player in this space that may become the biggest winner of all? Hard to say, but middleware may be the biggest, yet to be recognized B2B software yet." I would love to hear more about Tibco, their role in the middleware market and your, and your wifes, definition/role/purpose/market niche of middleware. I think you have brought up an important point. Just a side note... in essence your point is that Oracle's offerings equal.. roughly.. ARBA, ITWO and SEBL combined. Except Oracle's offerings are not as robust as any of these. It would seem that Oracle's 'best bet' would be from the supply side of the 'thing' as their background is the backoffice/ERP model no? I know they are still pretty clueless when it comes to CRM - I can't speak to the ARBA side of the equation (I agree that ARBA's piece seems, I say that as a novice in this area (!), the 'easiest' to replicate).

To: tinkershaw who wrote (37068)	12/27/2000 4:00:07 PM
From: lkj	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

RE: B2B Players Hi Tinker, Didn't Siebel buy someone about nine months ago that made either a marketplace or dynamic trade application? Don't know how it's working out, if working out at all. ARBA and CMRC. They do have the easiest to imitate software offerings. But, if it is so easily imitable, then why is it that ARBA is growing faster than any software company in history? With a crazy VC market, so many market makers were being set up in the last year. 95% of them will not survive, and new dollars are drying up. Tough road ahead for Ariba Marketplace. Application server companies such as BEA and SUN are not sitting still. They have either started or are about to compete again Ariba and C1. Why is it that ARBA has the most customers and growing? Check the number with Ariba again in 3 months if it's still growing. and why is it that IBM and ITWO find it necessary to partner with ARBA if all ARBA offers is easily imitable, low grade software. These events just are not consistent with the reality being seen in the market place at present. The alliance is regarding to Ariba Buyer, not Ariba Marketplace, and not Ariba DynamicTrade. Ariba Markplace uses applet and servelet. The client crashes about once every thirty minutes, and the server has been reported to crash as well. On any moderate load, the server is pretty much inactive. (You can drive to Starbucks buy a coffee, comeback, and your screen is still not updated yet.) Yes, Ariba Marketplace 7.5 will be better since it will be JSP-based, but the competition is already here. Ariba is falling behind. I think the fact is, that procurement software is not as easily to competently recreate on a massive scale as one would think. Although I am sure it can be done eventually. But the important issue here is the networking effect. Once you have Ariba buyer pushed massively through your system, and then have all your suppliers hooked up with Ariba as well, the switching costs become massive. For the same logic, put "database and ERP" instead of "Ariba Buyer", you will see Oracle showing up, and Ariba is no where to be found. I agree with your wife. If you want B2B, just buy Oracle. Regards, lkj P.S. For the long term, Ariba's future will be depended on its ACSN product, which (hopefully) does the heavy lifting between suppliers, logistics providers, and financial institution. At this point, i2 is way ahead of Ariba in this space.