Ariba, Sabre Form B2B Travel, Transport Exchange

NEW YORK (03/02/2000) - Sabre Holdings Corp. and Ariba Inc. yesterday announced an Internet-based, businesses-to-business (B2B) trade exchange for the travel and transportation industry.

The B2B exchange, called Sabre e-Marketplace, is designed to let airlines, travel agencies and other travel and transportation companies cut costs by comparing pricing of goods and buying them in quantity, Ariba Chief Executive Officer Keith Krach said in a keynote address here yesterday at the Gartner Group Inc.'s Internet and Electronic Commerce (iEC) show.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Sabre, which develops computer systems for the travel and transportation industries, places more than $70 billion a year in travel reservations. Ariba specializes in technology for Internet business-to-business exchanges.

The exchange will be designed to give participating companies a single procurement Web portal site to buy and sell goods and services, from equipment to paper for tickets, and conduct auctions for surplus goods including airplane parts, the companies said in a statement.

Participating in the exchange will be airlines, airports, more than 45,000 Sabre-connected travel agencies, railroads, 10 cruise lines, 50 car rental companies and 45,000 hotel properties, Krach said. This industry in the U.S. alone spends about $50 billion on goods and services, Krach said.

"We expect companies participating in the exchange to save 10 to 15 percent on costs of products and services," Krach said.

Sabre will use the Ariba B2B eCommerce platform, which includes Ariba IBX marketplace services; Ariba Network commerce services; the Ariba ORMS B2B procurement technology; and Ariba ORMX B2B host-based procurement services.

"Business-to-business Internet exchanges represent a fundamental shift in the way companies are doing business ... it's part of the first major shift in business in more than 100 years," Krach said at his keynote speech here.

The Sabre-Ariba announcement, which the companies said is the first Internet-based marketplace for the industry, comes in the wake of similar announcements for other industries. Earlier this week, Oracle Corp., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and the French retailer Carrefour AG announced a business-to-business online purchasing exchange. Last week, General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. ditched efforts to create competing online business-to-business exchanges, announcing they would cooperate on an auto-industry exchange.

Ariba is in Mountain View, California, at +1-650-930-6200, or http://www.ariba.com/; Sabre is in Fort Worth, Texas, at +1-817-963-6400 or http://www.sabre.com/.