Search our
entire site
Enter your search
terms below, or visit
our search page

Search case
studies only
Enter your search
terms below:

For the table
of contents and
hyperlinks to
general topics
proceed to toc

XML meshes B2B systems

JANUARY 1999

Ironside and Ariba tag set aimed at bringing buyers, sellers together

Ironside Technologies Inc. and Ariba Technologies Inc. are working on a set of XML tags that will bring together the disparate sides of B2B electronic commerce.

The Extensible Markup Language tags, which should be completed by year's end, will be a hot button in Ariba's buyer-side applications that tie in to Ironside's applications for business-to-business sellers. Both companies' chief technology officers met this month to hash out the details of the tags, officials from both companies said.

Once completed, and if adopted by other vendors, the tags could go a long way toward tying up the loose--and confusing--ends of B2B e-commerce. At the moment, there are two very different takes on this market: supplier-side applications, such as Ironside's, and buyer-side applications, such as Ariba's.

Ironside's software automates selling for manufacturers. Once a seller negotiates a deal with a customer, that customer, using a Java-enabled browser, gains access rights into that company's applications. Ironside brings the seller's host data or ERP (enterprise resource planning) data to the customer.

Buying automation

Ariba, on the other hand, enables customers to automate their buying processes by allowing them to centralize control of supply purchasing and automate that process.

Tying the two together will mean that users don't have to worry about which side of the equation they occupy, since buyer and seller systems will be able to talk to each other.

There are other means to this end, most notably the Open Business on the Internet specification, which has been championed by CommerceNet as a means to guarantee interoperability in B2B commerce.

Ironside also announced this month the release of Ironworks 2.2 for Windows NT, the Ironworks Developers Kit 2.0 for Windows and integration with IBM's Net.Commerce merchant server. The Java-based applications and tool kit, which also run on IBM's AS/400, tie directly into ERP applications with a Distributed Computing Environment connection.

With the Ironworks application, administrators can link directly into accounts receivable; reporting; and sales order management features, such as an ERP system's order status and order entry features. With the Java tool kit, administrators can tie other ERP functions to Ironworks. Buyers, in turn, are authenticated via password and use a Secure Sockets Layer connection from their browsers to obtain data from the ERP systems.

A typical Ironworks implementation costs $100,000 to $120,000. Developers pay $25,000 per application built with the tool kit.

Ironside, in Richmond Hill, Ontario, is at (905) 771-8599 or www.ironside.com. Ariba, of Sunnyvale, Calif., is at (408) 543-3800 or www.ariba.com.

TABLE OF CONTENTS