Commerce One Brings HQ to Hacienda

By Jay Hipps, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

E-Commerce Software Company to Move from Walnut Creek

Commerce One, an e-commerce company specializing in corporate procurement, will move its corporate headquarters to Hacienda from its current Walnut Creek location starting in October.

The company, which began trading on the NASDAQ in July, will occupy 150,000 square feet in the CarrAmerica Corporate Center on Rosewood Drive.

"The main reason for going to Hacienda was availability of space," says company spokesman Kit Robinson. "We are going to continue to grow, rapidly."

The company has doubled in size each of the past four years, from 36 people at the end of 1996 to a current total of 375 worldwide, with a total of 250 currently in Walnut Creek.

"There are other benefits to Hacienda and the Carr facility," he added. "There are large training rooms in the CarrAmerica Conference facility and that's going to be very important for us because we need to train our customers and our partners."

Their new space can accommodate up to 800 employees. The move should be completed in May of 2000.

Changing Procurement

Commerce One's main product is the Commerce Chain Solution, a program designed to automate the entire procurement process. The Commerce Chain Solution provides the software, catalog content, and network operating capability designed to "create a dynamic trading community between an enterprise and its suppliers," delivered via the Internet.

The product consists of BuySite, a program which automates the internal procurement process from requisition to order, and MarketSite, which automates supplier interactions from order to placement.

"This solution enables companies to significantly reduce operational costs and increase efficiency by automating the entire indirect goods and services supply chain," adds Robinson.

Strategic Partnerships Abound

Since going public in July, Commerce One has entered into a variety of partnerships and new business relationships. One of these partnerships with Hacienda's PeopleSoft has already started bearing fruit.

On September 1, the two companies announced that the Pepsi-Cola General Bottlers had selected the PeopleSoft eProcurement solution and Commerce One's BuySite to streamline its purchasing of materials and services, bringing about cost reduction, shorter transaction cycles, and lower administrative costs.

"Our whole market strategy is heavily based on partnering," says Robinson. "The PeopleSoft relationship is a good example of that, and we also are partnering with large telephone companies such as British Telecom and Singapore Telecom. These companies are providing the Commerce One e-commerce services as part of what they offer their clients, in addition to being customers of Commerce One for internal procurement."

Making Waves at eLink '99

Commerce One also made several major announcements at eLink '99, their e-commerce conference held in San Francisco earlier this month.

In addition to releasing a new revision of BuySite, the company also announced its intentions to add auction capabilities to its MarketSite.net business-to-business e-commerce portal. The auctions, made possible through a partnership with Mountain View's TradingDynamics, are expected to further cut costs on procurement.

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