Solution.com announced that it has contracted Razorfish, a global digital solutions provider, to help architect and build its new online business-to-business marketplace. Solution.com is constructing a buyer-centric "e-frastructure" (electronic infrastructure) marketplace model that is designed to provide dynamic online buying communities with new value chains that create buying efficiencies of global 1000 businesses for small and mid-range companies.
Razorfish is working along side the Solution.com design and engineering team to create its online marketplace. Solution.com's intelligent marketplace, a key part of Hewlett-Packard Company's Channels on Tap e-services ecosystem, will be functional via HP's AsktheDepot portal sites in early fall 2000. In tandem, the company will offer the same solutions marketplace model via Solution.com, beginning early fall 2000 as well.
"We are very fortunate to have a company of Razorfish's caliber to help bring our marketplace to fruition. Their vast experience and world-renowned capabilities in building on-line solutions that strongly reflect the buyer's perspective are the perfect complement to our vision. Razorfish's ability to quickly devote considerable resources to our project and to work as a virtual extension of our team is strong validation of the scope and far reaching impact of what we are building," said Marianne Albanese, chief technology officer of Solution.com.
Michael Pehl, newly appointed president of Razorfish, echoed Albanese's sentiment. "We believe in Solution.com's buyer-centric vision and are pleased to be working with such a dynamic and visionary group of people. In helping create this online marketplace, our teams are collectively pushing the envelope of many existing software technologies, and applying them in new and innovative ways. The commitment they have shown to the 'user experience,' coupled with their rich technological vision, made the Solution.com project extremely attractive to Razorfish."
Solution.com president and CEO Chris Dallas-Feeney explained that "Solution.com's unique approach begins from the buyer's perspective and provides a marketplace of buyer advocacy and solution choice in a private, self-serve trusted environment."
Albanese added that in developing the Solution.com marketplace model, the company is borrowing some of the best practices used by the pharmaceutical industry in bringing new drugs to market by developing intelligent protocols for, in this case, business customers.
The Solution.com marketplace simplifies the complexity of software purchases by employing an intelligent online consultative agent that quickly helps buyers move from problem definition to a qualified set of solutions. It will play a pivotal role in HP's Channels on Tap, which is a comprehensive approach to create a new ecosystem to support and fuel the growth of the hosted solutions and services marketplace.
"Our affiliations with companies like HP and Razorfish are indicative of our highly discerning approach to technology selection and partnering. Solution.com's mantra is 'accelerating invention,' and both of these relationships underscore our commitment to this philosophy," Dallas-Feeney added.
