Commerce One And Oracle Apps Ease Sourcing ProcessCommerce One And Oracle Apps Ease Sourcing Process

It's no surprise that purchasing departments are growing increasingly cost-conscious. Mindful of that, Commerce One Inc. and Oracle last week unveiled applications that should ease the process of selecting and negotiating with vendors of specialized parts and materials. The applications are designed to help companies integrate their purchasing processes with enterprise resource planning and supply-chain systems.

Commerce One's Source includes a reusable business library that should speed up sourcing cycles. The library enables the reuse of data assembled during the vendor-selection process. "This is our secret sauce," says Scott Wilkerson, Commerce One's marketing director.

Commerce One had a standalone sourcing product ready for some time but wanted to combine it with a transaction engine. Customers have increasingly been asking for an application that kicks in earlier in the sourcing process, providing more control from the initial request for information through the contract-management stage, Wilkerson says.

The average price for an implementation is $500,000. The application is expected to ship by year's end.

Sandy Kemper, chairman of Global Trading Web, which uses Commerce One technology to power its online marketplaces, says direct procurement applications that can be integrated with other business systems are of interest to marketplace providers. Global Trading Web is planning to evaluate Commerce One Source.

Oracle Sourcing is designed to save time by letting companies manage the entire sourcing process online, including conducting real-time, automated negotiations. Pricing for Oracle Sourcing isn't available.

Both applications are strong products with distinct advantages, says Joseph Marino, an analyst with Current Analysis. Oracle Sourcing represents a more-substantial offering than Oracle's previous procurement apps, he says.

"Oracle isn't just Web-enabling the commerce stuff," Marino says. "This is a real Internet commerce application." He adds that Commerce One Source's ability to reuse sourcing data could be a strong differentiating feature.