Ams, Ariba Team Up To Launch Elec. Marketplace For State, Local Govt.S - Company Business and Marketing

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, Dec 13, 1999

ORMX-Based Buysense.com Connects State & Local Govt. Buyers And Sellers Online

American Management Systems, a Fairfax, Va., business and information technology consulting firm with a long list of government clients, and Ariba Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., provider of business-to-business e-commerce services, have just launched "Buysense.com", a Web-based marketplace the two firms say will provide "significant cost savings and operating efficiencies" for state and local government organizations, institutions of higher education, and their goods and services suppliers.

Powered by the Ariba Network platform and the Ariba ORMX application, AMS and Ariba say the site represents "the first Internet standards- based, extranet eCommerce solution for the government and education market."

"Buysense.com leverages AMS' unparalleled knowledge of state and local government and Ariba's proven, industry-leading technology," says Bill Kilmartin, AMS vice president for eCommerce-in-government initiatives. "We are combining the powerful Ariba Network platform with AMS' experience working with more than 300 state and local government organizations. Buysense.com will support breakthrough performance for the eCommerce-enabled next generation government enterprise."

"Ariba's partnership with AMS and the launch of Buysense.com gives us the opportunity to extend the cost savings and revenue opportunities enjoyed by our business customers to all government agencies and their suppliers," adds Keith Krach, president and CEO of Ariba. "Buysense.com will add a potentially enormous source of buying power, as well as diversity and richness of content, to the Ariba Network ecosystem. Ariba is now positioned to meet the diverse eCommerce needs of all organizations large and small, public and private."

Buysense.com is an AMS-hosted Web site built on top of the Ariba Network platform that users can access on a subscription basis. Because the solution does not involve software installation or require internal support for operations, government users can be up and running quickly. For suppliers, the Web technology for Buysense.com retains the supplier brand identity and can be configured once and then reused for other eCommerce transactions with multiple customers in the public sector.

Once employees of government agency "buyers" connect to the site using the Ariba ORMX hosted application, they are able to search online supplier catalogs and place orders for goods and services through the Ariba Network platform from their desktop.

By streamlining manual purchasing activities, AMS says government organizations will be able to reduce non-contract "maverick" buying and direct aggregated purchasing power toward preferred suppliers at lower prices. Purchasing departments would also spend less time processing employee purchase orders, allowing them to focus on strategic purchasing and managing supplier contracts and relationships.

"As the only scalable, multi-jurisdictional online market community, Buysense.com allows state and local governments and institutions of higher education to cooperatively leverage their buying power," says Gary Lambert, AMS senior principal. "By allowing all types of buyers and sellers to connect online, sellers will broaden their market exposure and the governments' collective buying power will translate into lower costs and a wider range of choices."