PeopleSoft to unveil online marketplace

PALO ALTO: PeopleSoft Inc. plans to announce on Tuesday that it helped set up

for customer Credit Suisse First Boston an online exchange, saying that the

brokerage was the first company ever to conduct e-commerce transactions across

the Global Trading Web, a collection of online exchanges.

"This is our first major milestone," said PeopleSoft MarketPlace

Solutions head Kerry Lamson in an interview. "We are actually

inter-operating between our marketplace and other market sites across the

globe."

The announcement comes as initial investor enthusiasm surrounding online

exchanges has begun to fade. While industries ranging from automotive to retail

have announced online exchanges, allowing them to streamline supply chains and

link with customers and suppliers, very few are actually up and running.

Pleasanton, Calif.-based PeopleSoft is only but one of the many companies

vying to grab a piece of what is someday expected to be a market worth trillions

of dollars. PeopleSoft rival Oracle Corp. has announced that it was working with

Commerce One Inc. to set up an online exchange for the US auto industry and is

mainly going it alone, trying to use its own technology.

By contrast, International Business Machines Corp., i2 Technologies Inc. and

Siebel Systems Inc. have announced their own partnership to help set up

exchanges for companies, piecing together their technologies and using

consultants to make sure all the systems talk to each other.

Credit Suisse First Boston will use the exchange initially to buy office

supplies, laptop, desktop and standard computer servers and other

commodity-related items, said CSFB director, information technology, Vincent

DeMarco.

Eventually, he said they want to expand the marketplace to procure internal

services, such as reserving a conference room and arranging for conference calls

and refreshments. DeMarco said that his firm expects to save $31 million over

three years after the exchange is fully up and running.

DeMarco said that Oracle was on its short list of potential partners to help

set up the exchange, but in the end decided against Oracle.

"Oracle was initially on the short list but were quickly ruled out,

mostly because we didn't see the integration opportunities we'd have if we went

with PeopleSoft and Commerce One," DeMarco said.

CSFB used PeopleSoft's MarketPlace product, an e-commerce trading platform

that provides access to the Commerce One MarketSite in the United States and the

British Telecom MarketSite in England. These exchanges are linked by Commerce

One's Global Trading Web.

(C) Reuters Limited 2000.