A FOUNDATION TO BUILD ON.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Business to business e-commerce

With B2B in its infancy, the technology infrastructure is still evolving. There are big providers and smaller ones, and their solutions differ because companies want, and can afford, different things.

Buy or build? The classic question doesn't really apply for most companies plunging into B2B e-commerce. Building can be prohibitively complicated and expensive. With a host of vendors jockeying to provide the necessary systems to link companies in every corner of the world, buying is clearly the wiser choice.

But for a CFO concerned about signing off on a major expenditure for B2B software or networking, the near-term payback may be unclear -- in part because the architecture of the systems offers so many potential combinations. The Internet has become the backbone of e-marketplaces, but what role is there for other platforms like faxes and wireless? And what about varying formats, including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and electronic data interchange (EDI)? How will these link to legacy systems at huge companies? How can all the various pieces at myriad companies be integrated and tied back to common systems, including general ledger and accounting systems at the buyers' end? Without that unity, the B2B promise will never be more than just that, promise.

Some B2B technology providers insist that any talk of infrastructure must involve complete solutions that allow for two-way buying and selling and links to corporate reporting systems. "There's a lot more to infrastructure than hosting on a co-lo site," says Jim Fox, chief executive of Dulles, Va.-based EqualFooting, using the industry jargon for "co-location site" -- essentially massive computer banks run by companies like Intel and Exodus that will put a company's software on their computers. "Software is not infrastructure. That's where you run into a problem," Fox argues. "If they can't put you up on a platform and provide you with the links you need to operate, they're selling you software."

Yet software sales have driven the top end of the market. Huge, sophisticated providers like Oracle, Commerce One and Ariba have carved out a niche with major corporations, providing the software and platforms for far-flung procurement networks linking offices around the globe. IBM, however, decided to partner with Siebel Systems to establish exchanges, combining their technologies and bringing in consultants to make sure their systems could communicate with each other.

The biggest players also sell solutions to other market-makers and industry alliances. Oracle has created an E-Business Suite -- a set of varied products that can be sold individually or bundled as the customer needs. For instance, Oracle is providing the infrastructure backbone for Hostcentric, a hosting solutions and managed services provider with 21,000 customers and 50,000-plus Web sites on approximately 1,500 dedicated...