By CHRIS BARTON
Telstra and German software giant SAP will spend $20 million building an internet-based trading portal for businesses in the Asia-South Pacific region.
The joint venture, coinciding with Telstra's merger with Saturn, comes hard on the heels of a similar alliance - esolutions - announced last week by Telecom, EDS and Microsoft.
SAP New Zealand general manager, Geraldine McBride, said the mysap.com Marketplace would be live within 90 days. It will offer Telstra and SAP's local customers and their suppliers a variety of B2B (business to business) services such as online procurement, forecasting and supply chain management.
Ms McBride said similar regional hosting deals, including Europe, and Japan would follow. The South Pacific portal will also enable business to trade with the US-based cyber bazaar mysap.com.
Telstra and SAP will also combine to offer hosting services for application service provider partners to deliver mySAP.com solutions for rent. Telstra will provide "the hardware and pipes" for the virtual marketplace and SAP the software and expertise developed from its mysap.com portal which was launched in the US last year.
The deal appears to compete directly with Telecom and EDS's esolutions which include e procurement using Ariba's B2B e commerce software and Microsoft's "apps on tap."
Both announcements are likely to have an impact on the fledgling e procurement market in New Zealand. But the managing director of local site e://volution - which counts among its clients Clear Communications, Avis, Sky and Ford - doesn't seem too worried.
"I am surprised at some of the recent alliances claiming first mover advantage, without being aware of market realities," said managing director Henry Norcross.
Mr Norcross said e://volution E-Business, a division of Henderson printing firm Norcross, has over the last nine months already developed client focused supply portals and industry specific market places.
The co-branded SAP/Telstra portal will make money from service and transaction revenues which will be divided up between both in a way that was still being determined. Transaction fees are expected to be around two per cent.
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