Archive for November, 2009
B2B e-Marketplace for Dummies Book Series Re-Launched
Monday, November 23rd, 2009
I’ve just learned that the popular B2B e-Marketplace for Dummies series is going to be re-launched just in time for Black Friday and the December holidays. The publishers are hoping to capitalize on the nostalgia many former entrepreneurs and venture investors are feeling following the 10-year anniversary of the Internet marketplace era. The four part book series was required reading for most of the venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road during late 1999-2001. Internet Marketplaces for Dummies – The book that started the revolution, Internet Marketplaces for Dummies, explained how any startup with just a few million dollars could launch...
Ten B2B IPOs I would like to see in 2010 – Part 2
Friday, November 20th, 2009
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been well above 10,000 for several weeks now. And six new public offerings came to market this week as the capital markets continue to rebound, which begs the question what does this mean for B2B e-commerce providers? In my post last month I outlined the first five (out of ten) IPO candidates that I would like to see go public in 2010 – Cast Iron Systems, Talend, iWay, Rollstream and GHX. In part 2 of my post, I will list the remaining 5 candidates that I think are best positioned to follow in Emdeon’s...
Record Cash Holdings by Large Corporations makes B2Bank Integration More Important than Ever
Thursday, November 19th, 2009
The Wall Street Journal published an excellent article on November 3rd about how companies are holding more cash on average than any time in the past 40 years. “In the second quarter, the 500 largest nonfinancial US firms by total assets, held about $994 billion in cash and short term investments, or 9.8% of their assets.” With nearly a $1Trillion dollars in cash holdings, the opportunity for the Transaction Banking divisions at major financial institutions has never been greater. However, some institutions have an advantage over others in the areas of sales, client delivery and product features due to their...
ASN Best Practices
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
I had the opportunity to interview Melanie Ligons, Senior Product Manager with GXS, yesterday on the topic of ASNs (Advanced Ship Notices) and how they are used in the supply chain. There are two podcast recordings of the interview available on GXS Trading Grid Radio channel 85.6MHz WASN. Intro to ASNs - In the first podcast, entitled Introduction to ASNs, Melanie explains what the ASN (EDI 856 and EDIFACT DESADV) is and how it is used in the retail supply chain. Melanie also explains the benefits of ASN to key business processes such as warehouse receiving, cross-docking and inventory management...
New Twitter List for B2B Integration Providers
Monday, November 16th, 2009
There were two big news announcements last week. First, NASA reported that it has identified on the moon’s service, a discovery that could lead to near-term manned exploration and lunar space stations. The second big announcement was the creation of a new Twitter list for B2B. I say this somewhat in jest, but in fact there has been more discussion of the new Twitter Lists in social media circles than the Water on the Moon, Fall of the Berlin Wall or the Yankees 27th World Series victory stories. Pradheep Sampath @PradSam created a Twitter list last week which allows you...
New AS2 Restart and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
Friday, November 13th, 2009
The answer to the large file transfer problem in B2B may finally be emerging. Earlier this week, the Drummond Group announced a new initiative called AS2 Restart. Restart would allow users of AS2 to exchange messages with very large payloads (up to multi-gigabytes) using an open-standard, vendor-neutral approach. This could be the beginning of the end for proprietary Managed File Transfer (MFT) protocols, which have dominated the large file exchange segment for years now. Everyone from Pigeons to Dilbert have tried to Fix Large File Transfer For a few years now I have been pontificating about the need to find...
Rise and Fall of the B2B e-Marketplaces on Slideshare
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Now in slideshow format is the story of the Rise and Fall of the B2B e-Marketplaces. This presentation is a complement to my two recent blog posts - B2B e-Marketplaces - A Look Back 10 Years Later and 10 Reasons the B2B e-Marketplaces Failed. The presentation provides an overview of the marketplace era including: Dot Com Era - Rules of the New Economy Goals of the B2B e-Marketplaces Build It and They Will Come Why the Marketplaces Failed A Look Back and The Road Ahead | Get your SlideShare Playlist
Ten Reasons the B2B e-Marketplaces Failed
Monday, November 9th, 2009
After reading my earlier post on B2B e-Marketplaces, someone asked me – Why write about the B2B e-Marketplaces? It was a long time ago and most of them failed. So who cares? I think George Santayana’s famous quotation is applicable here “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This concept is more than appropriate in the B2B e-Commerce sector today when you consider all of the investments in electronic invoicing vendors and supply chain finance marketplaces made during recent years. There is nothing short of an irrational exuberance afoot as everyone from financial institutions to venture...
EDI and SaaS in Northern Africa
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
Today GXS issued a press release about a new retail EDI hub called Morocco Retail eXchange that has been developed by one of our partners, GNS. The exchange will help 5 retailers and 800 suppliers to conduct electronic trading and enhance visibility to supply chain activities. GNS has ambitions of expanding the hub beyond its original focus in Morocco to neighboring countries in Northern Africa. The Morocco Retail eXchange is a good example of the types of new B2B e-Commerce initiatives being pursued in emerging markets such as Africa. So I thought I would take a few minutes to discuss...
Recommendations for Customers Impacted by BT’s Discontinued EDINet Service
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
GXS has received several calls in the past few days from BT customers exploring alternative options for EDI services. These companies have been advised that BT is discontinuing its EDI*Net service effective 24 February 2010. BT has written to its customers informing them their plans, citing the challenging economic climate and the fact that the EDI*Net service was “reaching the end of its natural lifecycle.” However, this does not mean that BT will not offer B2B integration services. From my perspective, BT customers can still use the carrier’s VPN services to FTP transactions to trading partners. Furthermore, BT’s Radianz group...