July 24, 2000

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Custom IT Training Via Online Auctions

Service eases search for training courses and will be accessible on a number of sites

By Sandra Swanson

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VARBusiness Bidding For Your Business (7/10/00) InternetWeek E-Commerce Appliations (7/10/00)

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T managers looking for the best and most cost-effective training courses for their employees can spend hours perusing the Web sites of training vendors. A startup company called IQdestination.com, however, offers a service that could speed up the search.

Since May, IQdestination.com has offered reverse auctions for classroom IT training. Available to IT professionals, managers, and company training buyers, IQdestination.com lets people request bids online for certification courses in Cisco Systems, Lotus Development, Microsoft, and Novell technologies. The user indicates preferences such as location, time, start date, and price. As many as 12 people per course can be included in one request. The service became available on the IT career site Techies.com last week and can be accessed on a number of additional sites.

During a reverse auction, a person can track the status of bids. IQdestination.com sends an E-mail notifying the user when the 48-hour auction period has expired, after which the user has 48 hours to choose a bid. About 700 training centers nationwide are registered to submit bids. "We find that the majority of people who buy are IT managers," says Brent Handler, CEO of IQdestination.com.

IQdestination.com isn't the first to use the approach. Earlier this year, Thinq.com, the Web site for Thinq Learning Solutions Inc. (formerly TrainingNet), unveiled its Request for Proposal Exchange, which encompasses IT and general business skills. The exchange has received more than 1,500 requests since it opened, says Dave Egan, the company's co-founder and VP, provider relations. Thinq.com's more tailored approach lets users request bids for online and CD-ROM-based training programs. Buyers can create detailed requests and ask for an instructor with specific credentials or training for a custom SAP application. There's no limit on the number of seats users can request for specific classes. "The customized space is something Thinq.com does well," says IQdestination.com's Handler, adding that his company plans to launch a custom-auction area in September.

While IQdestination.com allows buyers and sellers to watch the bidding online, Thinq.com sellers can't view their competitors' bids-they only know when potential buyers have received a bid from a competitor.

IDC analyst Cushing Anderson expects to see more reverse-auction training sites, but questions whether they'll be widely used. Some details might not be conveyed in online requests, so the buyer of a bid must continue negotiating.

Says Anderson, "It will be valuable to some people, but it won't have wide applicability."

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