Ariba

Ariba Network connects buyers and suppliers by incorporating Internet services such as catalog and content management, order transaction routing, and multi-protocol support for numerous standard ways of exchanging content and transaction information. With this architecture, it provides a scaleable means of connecting rapidly growing numbers of buyers with even more rapidly growing suppliers. In addition to providing access to supplier content and transparent transaction routing, Ariba Network also delivers business and information services, including access to supplier ratings and evaluations, community news and forums, vertical industry consortiums, sourcing services, and surplus materials auctions.

Ariba’s multi-protocol network allows buyers to send transactions from Ariba ORMS (Object resource Management System) in one standard format. It then automatically converts the order into the suppliers' preferred transaction protocol. This infrastructure eliminates the need for a single standard for electronic commerce and gives suppliers the freedom to transact in their preferred protocol over the Internet. Additionally, it gives members a much better electronic reach to millions of existing suppliers.

To conduct commerce with all buying organizations using Ariba ORMS, suppliers need only register once through an on-line process, noting preferred transaction standards and configurations. This allows suppliers to leverage their existing eCommerce infrastructure to provide supplier content information as well as send and receive transactions.

Ariba Network delivers a standards-based business-to-business eCommerce solution to globally connect buyers to suppliers. Several proven Internet commerce models are incorporated to deliver a scaleable and easily implemented solution for both buyers and suppliers:

Indexing – highly scalable approach instead of content aggregation for content management, similar to proven approach used by major consumer services such as Yahoo! and Excite, to connect buying organizations using Ariba ORMS to suppliers' catalogs. It eliminates the need to aggregate content in a central repository, yet provides comprehensive and robust searching tools to buyers.

Multiple content models – buying organizations using Ariba ORMS have the option of linking to approved supplier Web sites, sourcing goods and services through indices maintained at Ariba Network, or caching indices of operating resources directly in Ariba ORMS. This flexibility ensures indices of supplier content are accessible and current.

Multi-protocol support for transactions – automatically routing and translating of transactions between suppliers and buying organizations, using major eCommerce standards, including Commerce XML (cXML), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), secure HTML, auto-FAX, and Catalog Interchange Format (CIF). Additional support for future standards, e.g. CommerceNet and RosettaNet, will be added as they emerge. Further, Ariba has recently partnered with Microsoft to ensure cXML compatibility with Microsoft BizTalk framework. This multi-protocol support enables buyers to conduct business with suppliers independent of the type of Web infrastructure used by the supplier.

Content specialists – members of Ariba Supplier Link provide buying organizations using Ariba ORMS fully indexed access to more than 10.1 million items from 84,700 suppliers of both vertical industry content and commodity-specific content. For example, supplier content from vertical marketplaces such as SciQuest, commodity-specific marketplaces such as Beyond.com, and other needs from suppliers such as Staples are all directly accessible from Ariba ORMS.

Financial Backers