E-Invaders

Business-to-government dot.coms moving into the federal market aren't easy to categorize. While most specialize in one area of e-procurement, almost all stake claims in others, too. Here's a loosely categorized potpourri of some of the biggest players vying for your business.

Virtual Malls

FedCenter.com (www.FedCenter.com) is Digital Commerce's freestanding Web-based mall. Free to government, vendors pay a fee per transaction. On offer are computers and peripherals, office products, life sciences equipment, services, etc.

GSA Advantage! (www.gsaadvantage.gov) is the General Services Administration's Web mall listing more than a million products and services from more than 2,000 vendors on the GSA schedules.

Intelisys Corp. (www.intelisys.com) hopes to parlay its success with a multi-state e-mall into federal sales of its Internet procurement system.

JWOD.com (www.jwod.com) is an online store offering office, cleaning and other supplies produced by blind and disabled workers. JWOD is a manadatory source for federal buyers.

NIC Commerce.com (www.niccommerce.com) builds internal malls based on agencies' contracts and other contracts they can use. Twelve agency customers include the Air Force,
UNICOR and NASA.

Planetgov.com (www.intelltech.com) is a federal news and information site being built to draw buyers by technology reseller Intellisys Technology Corp.

Demand Aggregators

Buyers.gov (www.buyers.gov) is the GSA Federal Technology Service's Web sales portal for computers and peripherals. Buyers can post solicitations to get suppliers' bids or shop online. Suppliers can post items for sale and drop prices as purchasers commit to buy.

FedBid.com (www.fedbid.com) lets buyers pool their purchases to get price discounts as vendors bid on the aggregated purchases.

Reverse Auction Sites

FreeMarkets.com (www.freemarkets.com) is an online auction site that vets suppliers, advises buyers and runs live dynamic pricing events. It's the first auction site on the GSA schedule.

Ariba (www.ariba.com) is a developer of do-it-yourself Web auction software, as well as e-procurement systems and a network of suppliers in various industries.

Commerce One (www.commerceone.com) a builder of online ordering systems, a trading network and auctioning software, just moved into the public sector this year.

Hybrids

Affiliated Computer Services (www.acs-gsg.com) allies with SupplierMarket.com and VolumeBuy.com to offer reverse auctioning and demand aggregation.

American Management Systems, Ariba, FreeMarkets and Siebel (www.amsinc.com) form a joint venture offering e-procurement assistance from purchase orders to Web catalogs to reverse auctions.

Oracle Corp. (www.oracle.com) has built e-procurement and inventory management onto its data warehousing software for online purchasing, market-making and auctioning.

Government Auction Sites

Bid4Assets.com (www.bid4assets.com) moves government's sales of seized, distressed and surplus assets online.

Assets@YourDisposal (www.financenet.gov/financenet/fed/cfo/salesteam/docs.htm), a pilot project of Financenet, hopes to become an online, searchable clearinghouse of agencies' surplus asset inventories.