Commerce One eyes business-to-business portals

WALNUT CREEK, CALIF. - Want to set up a giant business-to-business portal for companies in your industry to swap purchases and invoices over the Internet? Commerce One claims it has the software for you.

MarketSite 3.0 is Windows NT software that handles catalog hosting, transaction processing and purchase-order processing. This new version of the product, expected to be in beta release in the second quarter, is touted as the Open Marketplace Platform because it can perform tasks such as document conversion, including the translation of electronic data interchange into Extensible Markup Language.

Version 3.0 is also open because it handles trades generated by Commerce One's intranet BuySite software, and will work with competing electronic commerce-procurement products from RightWorks and Intershop Communications.

With MarketSite 3.0, each set of trading partners uses the portal software as the middleman to send and receive purchase information. Partners can define the document types however they want.

"They can define the shipping request, payment request and the like," says Chuck Donchess, Commerce One's vice president of marketing.

Boasting big backers

In related news, Commerce One today will announce that carrier British Telecommunications will be using MarketSite 3.0 to set up a business-to-business portal. A similar deal is in place with Japan-based carrier, NTT. A North American-based portal, called MarketSite. net, is being built by MCI WorldCom.

Commerce One and each carrier will split the portal fee, usually $2 per transaction, that suppliers get charged. The three sites claim they will work together to create an international trading community.

A few firms, including W.W. Grainger and Schlumberger Oil Services, say they hope to be able to use the commerce portals when they're ready.