Andersen Consulting to Create eProcurement Venture Powered by Sun and iPlanet Technologies.Business Editors & Multimedia Writers NEW YORK/PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2000 Venture Agrees to Purchase Up to $300 Million of Hardware, Software and Services from Sun and iPlanet(TM) Andersen Consulting See Accenture. today announced that it has established a new eProcurement venture in a strategic relationship with Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. that will be powered by products from Sun and iPlanet(TM) E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun/Netscape Alliance. Each firm has agreed to commit the people, products and resources required for the success of the venture and other iPlanet eProcurement initiatives. The new eProcurement venture expects to take advantage of the burgeoning marketplace for indirect, Web-enabled procurement The fancy word for "purchasing." The procurement department within an organization manages all the major purchases. and predicts that it can help customers to cut their costs by as much as 50 percent on specific categories of these purchases. Cost reductions will be driven by sourcing specialists who foster effective relationships with suppliers with the goal of yielding the best possible prices from the market. AC Ventures, the venture capital unit of Andersen Consulting, has made a majority equity investment in the venture. Sun, as the first of several strategic charter customers, has made a minority equity investment. Subject to the satisfactory completion of due diligence Research; analysis; your homework. This term has caught on in all industries, because it sounds so "wired." Who would want to do analysis or research when they can do due diligence. See wired. , the venture will provide sourcing and transactional operation services to a significant portion of Sun and Andersen Consulting's indirect purchasing spend. The new venture has agreed to purchase Sun(TM) hardware and services as well as iPlanet(TM) eCommerce infrastructure and applications software, with a list price value of up to $300 million. The venture will draw upon iPlanet's broad portfolio to build a scalable, more secure, end-to-end industry standards-based solution comprised of industry leading products. "Andersen Consulting's strengths in eProcurement and strategic sourcing combined with Sun and iPlanet technologies will provide the venture's customers with one of the most reliable, scalable eCommerce solutions available on the market today," said Scott McNealy Scott McNealy (born November 13, 1954 in Columbus, Indiana) was the Chairman of Sun Microsystems, the computer technology company he co-founded in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. , Chairman and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sun's platform and the eCommerce expertise of iPlanet enable marketplace service providers to process millions of transactions per day and in the process save millions of dollars for customers and shareholders." "By combining the strengths of Andersen Consulting, Sun Microsystems and iPlanet, we are enabling businesses around the globe to extract new benefits from Internet-based procurement," said Joe W. Forehand forehand the head, neck, shoulders, withers and forelimbs of the horse. , managing partner and CEO of Andersen Consulting. "Our combined hardware, software, consulting and outsourcing services will unite leading edge technology and world class procurement experts to deliver a uniquely efficient and effective business-to-business solution to our clients." The eProcurement Venture The venture, which will be named shortly, is expected to be fully operational by Fall, 2000. The venture's goal is to attract more than $200 billion of indirect procurement spend by 2004. Currently, the venture has secured commitments from customers that, once finalized See finalization. , will represent more than $20 billion in aggregated spend. These customers include major companies crossing both geographies and industries, including financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. , automotive, telecommunications, chemicals and food products. This global venture expects to provide a unique model for Web-enabled procurement of indirect goods and services In economics, economic output is divided into physical goods and intangible services. Consumption of goods and services is assumed to produce utility (unless the "good" is a "bad"). It is often used when referring to a Goods and Services Tax. like office supplies Office supplies is the generic term that refers to all supplies regularly used in offices by businesses and other organizations, from private citizens to governments, who works with the collection, refinement, and output of information (colloquially referred to as "paper work"). , computer equipment and airline tickets. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. IDC, the market for expenditures processed by Internet commerce procurement solutions will reach upwards of $1.4 trillion by 2003. The eProcurement Solution The success of this venture has been predicated on the integration of three areas of expertise -- Andersen Consulting's and the venture's negotiating and sourcing capabilities, iPlanet software solutions, and Sun servers and storage. Andersen Consulting expects to contribute to the venture critical sourcing capabilities, business integration skills, eProcurement experience and outsourcing expertise. The venture expects to leverage Andersen Consulting's expertise to address strategic and tactical issues related to eProcurement implementation. In addition, the venture will benefit from Andersen Consulting's experience in developing sourcing strategies and managing supplier transactions. To further strengthen the venture's negotiating and sourcing capabilities, it is expected to become the majority shareholder in hpi GmbH, formerly known as Hoechst Procurement International, a Celanese company that serves 50 clients for whom it manages approximately $2 billion of indirect spend. "The combination of negotiation skills we expect to bring to the venture and the transactional efficiency available through the new platform provide a strong value proposition for our clients," said Mike Freienstein, Managing Director of hpi GmbH. "We anticipate that the accrued savings we project will be virtually unmatched by any other venture available in the market." The venture predicts that it will achieve increasingly favorable fa·vor·a·ble adj. 1. Advantageous; helpful: favorable winds. 2. Encouraging; propitious: a favorable diagnosis. 3. pricing, both from the purchasing power Purchasing Power 1. The value of a currency expressed in terms of the amount of goods or services that one unit of money can buy. Purchasing power is important because, all else being equal, inflation decreases the amount of goods or services you'd be able to purchase. 2. it will gain as its client-base grows, and from the efficiency derived from enhanced relationships between vendors and customers. In addition, leading-edge eCommerce solutions from iPlanet are expected to help the venture's specialists to drive greater value into the procurement process by providing for, among other things: simplified requisitioning; contract placements using reverse auctioning tools; a portal providing greater ease of use to customers and suppliers; and improved spend reports using data warehousing/mining. In effect, the venture expects to create a new electronic marketplace that will rapidly accelerate the achievement of cost savings to its customers. The venture's software platform will be based on the iPlanet Strategic Internet Procurement solution which uses iPlanet BuyerXpert and iPlanet ECXpert as core applications. This solution was chosen by the venture because of its customization capabilities, flexibility and advanced distributed architecture. Built on iPlanet's robust and scalable industry leading Directory, Application and Web Servers, this solution provides a comprehensive procurement environment that will allow the venture to efficiently meet the needs of its customers. Sun's family of servers and storage products, providing customers with the necessary reliability, availability and scalability needed today, is expected to allow the venture to build out the infrastructure needed to transact An earlier e-commerce system for the Web from Open Market that included order capture and secure order fulfillment using credit cards, ecash and other payment systems. It included customer service and subscription administration capabilities as well as an integrated database for reporting the tremendous volume of business anticipated in the Internet commerce procurement marketplace. The Sun Enterprise(TM) server family provides customers with flexibility, investment protection and an unparalleled growth path. Designed for workgroup, departmental and data center computing environments, the Sun Enterprise server family provides the ideal platform for electronic commerce, data warehousing See data warehouse. data warehousing - data warehouse , Internet/Intranet and customer management systems. The eProcurement Venture Leadership Dow Bauknight, former managing partner of Andersen Consulting's Supply Chain line of business, will act as President and CEO of the venture. Bauknight will be supported by a team of sourcing and eProcurement solutions specialists around the globe. About Andersen Consulting Andersen Consulting is an $8.9 billion global management and technology consulting organization whose mission is to help its clients create their future. The firm works with clients from a wide range of industries to bring about far-reaching change by aligning their people, processes and technology with their strategy. Andersen Consulting has more than 65,000 people in 48 countries. Its home page address is http://www.ac.com. AC Ventures, the venture capital unit of Andersen Consulting, works with entrepreneurs to build companies that transform industries and generate superior economic returns. The unit provides a unique venture capital option that can help start-ups accelerate growth and market penetration Noun 1. market penetration - the extent to which a product is recognized and bought by customers in a particular market penetration - the act of entering into or through something; "the penetration of upper management by women" . Based in Palo Alto, California “Palo Alto” redirects here. For other uses, see Palo Alto (disambiguation). Palo Alto (IPA: /ˌpæloʊˈʔæltoʊ/, from Spanish: palo: "stick" and alto: "high", i.e. , AC Ventures expects to invest up to $1 billion globally over the next five years. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network is The Computer(TM)" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW SUNW Sun Microsystems, Inc (former stock symbol; now JAVA) SUNW Stanford University Network Workstation (Sun Microsystems, Inc) ) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to ".com" their businesses. With $14 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com. About iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape Alliance (Sun-Netscape Alliance, Santa Clara, CA) A joint venture of Sun and Netscape to market Netscape's Web-based software products. The Alliance was formed when AOL acquired Netscape in 1999 to take advantage of the fact that the bulk of Netscape software was already running on Sun hardware. , was established in March 1999 by America Online See AOL. , Inc. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. to provide easy-to-deploy, comprehensive eCommerce solutions for the Net Economy. iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions provides the industry's broadest portfolio of Internet infrastructure and eCommerce applications software and services. Its iPlanet Messaging, Directory, Web and Application Server software all enjoy No. 1 marketshare positions. For more information, consult the iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions Web site at http://www.iplanet.com or call 888/786-8111. Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, iPlanet, Sun Enterprise and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and other countries. |
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