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

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (1812)	3/21/2001 7:39:16 PM
From: Spytrdr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2110

that's the price that matters. ___ <<It is still trading above its IPO price but below the price at which it began trading.>>

To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (1812)	3/22/2001 8:00:19 AM
From: Suzanne Newsome	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2110

High costs seen deterring buyers from joining online exchanges NEW YORK, March 21 (Reuters) - Online electronic exchanges sprung to life with promises of billions of dollars in cost savings, but a report released on Wednesday said firms won't be able to reap those benefits until they have spent millions of dollars on new software and integrating different systems. The report from Forrester Research focused on purchasing executives, some of the key people calling the electronic commerce shots inside organizations. "While the promise of lowering the cost of goods entices buyers, e-marketplace participation won't come cheap," the report said. On average, companies will spend an estimated $5.4 million to $22.9 million each over the next five years getting themselves connected to exchanges, the report said. Software vendors such as Commerce One Inc. (NASDAQ:CMRC), Ariba Inc. (NASDAQ:ARBA), i2 Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ:ITWO) and Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) are among the companies that stand to benefit most from the growth in online transactions, which Boston-based AMR Research predicts will surge to $1.2 trillion in 2002 from $581 billion this year. But in order to capture the benefits of the exchanges, firms will have to invest heavily in four key areas, said Boston-based Forrester. Companies will have to change their internal purchasing processes, integrate electronic exchanges with their own internal software, buy business-to-business software and pay transaction fees for buying the goods online. "E-marketplaces offer significant opportunities for buyers to lower prices and streamline buying processes," said Forrester analyst Matthew Sanders, who added that on average firms expect their online buying efforts to cut costs by 4 percent this year, doubling to 8 percent by 2003. "But these buyers aren't blindly enthusiastic," Sanders said. "More than half of the purchasing executives we interviewed acknowledge that in-house adoption hurdles like user-level resistance might delay their savings." Forrester, which interviewed 50 executives from Fortune 1000 companies, said so-called baseline buyers, who use exchanges to purchase simple operational goods such as basic office supplies, will spend $5.6 million to get connected. Companies using exchanges in a more sophisticated way, to buy raw materials to lower their inventory costs for example, will spend $10.7 million. Those firms using online marketplaces to manage all of their procurement activities will spend $22.9 million. As well as cost, the lack of suppliers signed up to exchanges was a prohibitive factor for buyers thinking of purchasing online, said Josh Greenbaum, principal of Daly City, Calif.-based Enterprise Applications Consulting. "Who wants to go to a market that has nothing on the shelf?" Greenbaum said.