Ariba Announces New Products and Strategy to Increase Customer Savings.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

VENICE, Italy & SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 2004

Three New Products Designed to Dramatically Increase Customer

Savings Opportunities; Solutions Enable Procurement to Take Spend

Management to the Front Lines of the Business

Ariba,(R) Inc. (Nasdaq:ARBA), the leading Enterprise Spend Management (ESM) solutions provider, today unveiled three new products and upgrades to the full platform of Ariba Spend Management solutions. Collectively, the new products are part of Ariba's strategy to help customers adopt a category-specific approach to spend management, and to dramatically increase the savings opportunities for large enterprises in any industry.

Today's procurement departments directly control only a percentage of an entire organization's spending. The remainder of spend decisions are made at the department or end-user level independent of the procurement department's influence. This "front line" spending in every large enterprise represents a significant opportunity for procurement departments looking for ways to manage spend across an entire organization. There are hundreds of examples of such front lines spending in a wide variety of complex spend categories including the largely untouched and unmanaged area of services.

Ariba's new product release enables customers to take spend management to the front lines of the business, and to capture and manage more than 80 percent of their entire organization's spend within a single, closed-loop process.

New Products -- Driving Spend Management to Front Lines

Ariba is introducing three new solutions to its Enterprise Spend Management suite -- Ariba(R) Category Procurement(TM), Ariba(R) Contract Workbench(TM) and Ariba(R) Settlement(TM) -- to transform and expand each step of the spend management process.

Ariba(R) Category Procurement(TM)

Ariba Category Procurement is a new solution for managing complex spend categories at the front lines of the business. The solution is designed to enable companies to double, or in some cases triple the amount of spend they currently capture and manage, resulting in increased savings to the bottom-line. Ariba Category Procurement uses new capabilities in collaborative requisitioning, rate card and formula-based contract pricing, and time card management to manage a wide variety of complex spend categories.

Ariba(R) Contract Workbench(TM)

Ariba Contract Workbench is an expansion of Ariba's existing Ariba Contracts solution. The new product reduces cycle times for contract creation, enhances collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, centralizes contract visibility, and drives standard contract language and best practices across the organization. Ariba Contract Workbench is able to significantly accelerate the time to assemble, negotiate and collaborate on contract creation resulting in better pricing and compliance.

Ariba(R) Settlement(TM)

Ariba Settlement is an integrated solution to manage and pay approved invoices. The new application assists with payment terms and discount handling, payment schedule, status visibility and electronic disbursement on the Ariba(R) Supplier Network(TM), payment remittance advice routing and visibility, payment scheduling, forecast and discount analysis and vendor self service and payment profile synchronization. Ariba Settlement automates the invoicing and payment process to reduce processing costs and more effectively forecast and manage cash requirements.

"We believe Ariba is taking the right steps to solve additional business problems by expanding spend management solutions beyond the traditional procurement department," said Kai Nowosel, Head Global Purchasing Commercial Operations, Aventis. "By funneling more category-specific spend to the front lines, Ariba provides the opportunity to significantly increase the amount of spend under management. We feel this is the right approach for companies to increase cost savings throughout the company."

"British Airways has been using Ariba Spend Management solutions to control and manage our sourcing and procurement activities since 2001," said Silla Maizey, Procurement Director, British Airways. "We have seen immediate, substantial and lasting cost-savings with Ariba Spend Management solutions. We fully embrace Ariba's vision and strategy for bringing solutions to drive external spend management, enabling sound decision-making from all sourcing across all categories of spend. The vision to have procurement affect the front lines of the business is compelling to any organization in any industry."

Ariba Enterprise Spend Management Solution Upgrades

In addition to its new product introductions, Ariba announces the next generation of Enterprise Spend Management solutions, upgrading all of its applications with performance, functionality, and category-specific improvements. Ariba(R) Buyer(TM), Ariba(R) Enterprise Sourcing(TM), Ariba(R) Category Management(TM), Ariba(R) Invoice(TM), Ariba(R) Analysis and Ariba(R) Travel and Expense(TM) have all been enhanced to assist in driving spend management to the front lines of the business. Examples of Ariba Spend Management Solution upgrades include:

-- Actionable alerts in Ariba Analysis

-- Reporting enhancements in Ariba Buyer

-- Public RFX in Ariba Enterprise Sourcing

-- Detailed supplier bid tracking and reporting in Ariba

Enterprise Sourcing

-- Sub-project creation and management in Ariba Category

Management

-- Digital signature support in Ariba Invoice

-- Tax accrual enhancement in Ariba Invoice

-- Online travel booking integration in Ariba Travel & Expense

-- European per diem in Ariba Travel & Expense

"After years of success providing our customers with cost-reduction spend management solutions, it is time to introduce the next phase of our ESM vision," said Michael Schmitt, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Ariba, Inc. "Our customers have been telling us that their ERP systems aren't enough. They need a single, closed-loop process with category-specific tools to drive more spend management to the front lines of their business. We've been able to integrate that functionality into our new solutions allowing customers to capture and manage a significantly larger portion of their enterprise spend."

Product Availability

Ariba Category Procurement, Ariba Contract Workbench, Ariba Settlement and all solution upgrades to the Ariba Spend Management solution are expected to be generally available by the second calendar quarter of this year.

About Ariba, Inc.

Ariba, Inc. is the leading Enterprise Spend Management (ESM) solutions provider. Ariba helps companies develop and leverage spend management as a core competency to drive significant bottom line results. Ariba Spend Management software and services allow companies to align their organizations with a spend-centric focus and deploy closed-loop processes for increased efficiencies and sustainable savings. Ariba can be contacted in the U.S. at [phone] or at www.ariba.com.

Ariba and the Ariba logo are registered trademarks of Ariba, Inc. Ariba Spend Management, Ariba Analysis, Ariba Buyer, Ariba Category Management, Ariba Contracts, Ariba Travel & Expense, Ariba Workforce, Ariba Invoice, Ariba eForms, Ariba Enterprise Sourcing, Ariba Category Procurement, Ariba Contract Workbench, Ariba Settlement, Ariba Supplier Network, BPM Services, Power Sourcing, Total Spend Capture and PO-Flip are trademarks or service marks of Ariba, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Ariba Safe Harbor 

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995: Information and announcements in this release involve Ariba's expectations, beliefs, hopes, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future and are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to Ariba as of the date of the release, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to Ariba's operating and financial results to differ materially from its current expectations include, but are not limited to: delays in development or shipment of new versions of Ariba's products and services; lack of market acceptance of Ariba's existing or future products or services; inability to continue to develop competitive new products and services on a timely basis; introduction of new products or services by major competitors; the ability to attract and retain qualified employees; difficulties in assimilating acquired companies; the impact of recent workforce reductions on Ariba's operations; lengthening sales cycles and the deferrals of anticipated orders; declining economic conditions, including a recession; inability to control costs; changes in the company's pricing or compensation policies; inability to successfully manage a reduction in the company's workforce; significant fluctuations in our stock price; the outcome of legal proceedings relating to the restatement of our financial statements; the possibility that stockholders or regulatory authorities may initiate additional proceedings against Ariba and/or our officers and directors as a result of the restatements; the impact of acquiring Aliiente and entering into an agreement to acquire FreeMarkets, including the disruption or loss of customer, business partner, supplier or employee relationships; the level of costs and expenses incurred by Ariba as a result of such transactions; and the level of professional fees and expenses incurred by Ariba in connection with its previously disclosed accounting review and associated regulatory and litigation proceedings. Factors and risks associated with its business, including a number of the factors and risks described above, are discussed in Ariba's Form 10-K/A filed January 28, 2004 and in its Form S-4 filed February 12, 2004.