Multi-exchange Procurement Marketplace Announced

VEGAS  BUSINESS WIRE -- CommerceScout announced Tuesday the launch of a new e-marketplace that the company says will allow buyers of electronic components and chemicals to search and track prices on multiple online exchanges.

The company announced the CommerceScout Network, its first offering, at the eLink 2000 Conference, hosted by Commerce One in Las Vegas, Nev.

The network will give buyers in private and public marketplaces increased visibility into product availability and pricing across multiple exchanges, according to the company, which was founded in 1999 and is based in Seal Beach, Calif.

"It was the growing fragmentation of e-marketplace choices that led to CommerceScout Network," said Steve Oakley, CommerceScout's president, CEO and co-founder. "CommerceScout Network acts as a magnifying glass into public and private catalogs, auctions, consortia and exchanges, with functional components that add depth and efficiency to a company's research and procurement cycle."

CommerceScout Network components include CS Integrate, which allows for integration into backend systems for purchase order processing; CS Search, which gives buyers the ability to search numerous exchanges based on user-selected, multiple search capability; CS Track, which continually scouts for a product- or content-criteria match and notifies the user via a wireless device when a match is found; and CS Analyze, which lets users access industry supply-and-demand data, transaction information, inventory movements and pricing fluctuations on key parts and products.

The company's solution also includes CS Procure, which allows multiple marketplace procurement using the output from the Search or Track functions. For sellers, CS Connect provides real-time wireless notification of buyer demand requests.

MANEX Systems, which provides an ERP/MES system to electronics manufacturers, announced last month it will use CommerceScout Network to facilitate its customers' buying and selling of components. Last week, eMedius, a developer of Web-based enabling technologies, announced it will integrate the CommerceScout Network into its solution for design engineers at contract manufacturers.

For more information on the evolution of "meta-exchanges" that allow searching and procurement across multiple online marketplaces, see the Net Best column in the December issue of iSource Business, hitting the newsstands in mid-November.