InformationWeek

June 7, 1999

Procurement For High End

Trilogy enhances Buying Chain app

By Clinton Wilder

Related links:

Procurement Progress

Wholesale Connection

Easier Web Procurement

Intranet/Internet Resource Center

And from our sister publications:

Computer Reseller News Industry Slices Up Procurement Pie

he market for Web procurement got hotter last week as Trilogy Software Inc. made a play for large enterprise customers by introducing Buying Chain Enterprise Edition.

Trilogy has landed several hundred small companies--and departments of larger companies--with Buying Chain, its low-end procurement application launched last fall with prices as low as $995 for 50 users or less. But Buying Chain Enterprise Edition will be priced at more than $1 million for most deployments and puts Trilogy in competition with enterprise online procurement leaders Ariba Inc. and Commerce One Inc. It also brings Trilogy back to the large enterprise customers of its core product line in sales-force automation and marketing applications.

Trilogy also wants to expand its customer base. The company says it has five large customers with SAP enterprise resource planning applications on the back end testing Buying Chain Enterprise Edition--none of whom use Trilogy for other applications. Rob Lilleness, VP of Trilogy's Buying Chain business unit, says the product will also link to ERP products from Baan, J.D. Edwards, and PeopleSoft.

Pricing will vary, but Lilleness says it will generally run 10% higher than Ariba, which charges several million dollars for larger deployments.

Analysts say the market has room for another player. "Enterprises are looking to E-procurement to save money, and the largest organizations have the most to gain," says Vern Keenan, an analyst with research firm KeenanVision.

Trilogy has a "rapid deployment" goal of six months or less for Buying Chain Enterprise Edition, says Lilleness, compared with the industry average of six to 18 months for large installations.