By Pia Heikkila, 22 June 2000 00:20
NEWS Commerce One has finally confirmed its merger with professional services company AppNet after withdrawing its original merger plans earlier this week. The merger will take place in an all-stock deal valued at $1.4bn and which will double the size of Commerce One's business. The ecommerce specialist claims the deal will provide a boost for its onsite consulting and implementation. But rival ecommerce provider Ariba said that the merger will result in an obscure business model. Ben Wright, VP of strategic alliance EMEA at Ariba, told silicon.com: "It does not make much sense for a business-to-business (B2B) infrastructure company to move into onsite services, as there are many implementation companies available on the market right now." Hasnain Merali, senior ecommerce analyst at consultancy Datamonitor, told silicon.com that Commerce One needed the deal to expand its service professional staff. "Ecommerce vendors such as Commerce One have been concentrating on selling their services, but have ignored the interaction and expertise needed at the client site. The merger will boost their implementation capacity," Merali said. Chris Phillips, marketing manager for Commerce One UK, said: "The reason for this merger is to speed the expansion of our implementation services. We will also continue to support the existing systems integration partners who are working alongside us."
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