Emptoris, IBM, Smart Commerce and Beyond — Thawing Out the Dim Sum or Something Fresh?
Sometimes when markets move fast, you’ve got to take calls in uncomfortable spots — literally, physically and metaphorically. Such was the case with the analyst briefing following IBM’s announced acquisition plans for Emptoris. I happ…
IBM embellishes its B2B commerce empire… by acquiring Emptoris
There will be technical weenies that exhort today’s acquisition of Emptoris by IBM as yet another acquisition that will cause cosmetic commerce IP networks to collide in a dizzying array of cloudy business models. With $20 billion allocated to their acquisition war chest, IBM’s incoming CEO clearly intends to accelerate commerce particles until a thick blue [...]
IBM and Emptoris: Key Challenges and Opportunities
Please click here for our first post in this series, covering the initial IBM acquisition announcement of Emptoris.
In a series of posts in the coming weeks, we’ll tackle a range of customer, company, competitive and market implicati…
Emptoris Acquires Rivermine — Telecom Expense Management Meets Procurement
Today, Emptoris announced it has acquired Rivermine, one of the leading telecom expense management (TEM) vendors, further expanding its solution set into an additional complex category which has historically been outside of procur…
Rosslyn: Healthy Growth and Exploiting a Growing Niche in DIY Spend Visibility (Part 1)
Rosslyn Analytics, like Spend Rader and Vendormate, two other young, upstart providers in the spend analysis and supplier management areas, has been going through a very strong period of growth in the past year. In a recent call w…
Emptoris Empower Kicks Off — What’s on My Mind to Focus on?
Emptoris Empower kicks off this week in Boston. I’ll be on a flight to my old stomping grounds later today (I lived and worked in the city during my first job out of college/graduate school). Regarding the event itself, I’ve got q…
Zycus — A Summer Update (Part 1)
This spring, I had the chance to meet dozens of Zycus customers and prospects as their “Experience” tour criss-crossed the country. These discussions with both existing and potential customers considering a range of Zycus solutions further solidified my view that Zycus has been successful in expanding outside of just the spend analysis area. They may [...]
An Emptoris Summer Update: Customer Intimacy, Growth and Partnering Driving Strategy (Part 1)
I recently caught up with Emptoris for a spring/summer briefing and update. From the discussion, I’m impressed by the level of transformation in the organization since Patrick Quirk, Emptoris’ CEO, took the helm last fall. Emptoris has done a 180-degree turn from its past engineering/innovation-focused. Currently, it’s strategy now places the customer — and their [...]
Vendor Analysis and Shortlist: “Strategic Sourcing” or E-Sourcing (Part 2)
In Part 2 of our series looking at shortlists of “strategic sourcing” or e-sourcing vendors, we’ll tackle specialist optimization providers Trade Extensions and CombineNet. I will caveat this post (as I have and will continue to do with others in the series) with the point that these views represent the opinions of a single person [...]
Vendor Analysis and Shortlist: “Strategic Sourcing” or E-Sourcing (Part 1)
My first analysis in this series of posts breaking out the areas that Gartner recently evaluated collectively in its “Strategic Sourcing” Magic Quadrant will focus on e-sourcing suites. I’ve divided this analysis into two parts. Today, I’ll examine what I term “full-capability e-sourcing suites.” In Part 2, I’ll look at specialists (e.g., those providers who [...]
