Nowhere do companies need to balance these conflicting credos more than in the emerging e-marketplaces and exchanges. With the majority of a product's cost set during the design phase, opening up your intellectual property to suppliers and partners early in the development cycle can save you money. But the gritty reality of coopetition may be the snake in this Utopia. AMR Research notes a surprising increase in the number of IT partnerships among competitors, mainly marketing-driven.
Companies can be partners for one deal and competitors for another.
With this understanding in mind, analysts are approaching the B2B alliance of IBM, I2 Technologies Inc., and Ariba Inc. with caution. Because I2 and Ariba are beginning to overlap each other in areas such as procurement, collaboration tools, and supply chain management, the question of how strong this integration can be becomes paramount. David C. Rawlings, a global offerings executive in IBM's Supply Chain Management Services, comments. Unlike the rival alliance between SAP and Commerce One, both I2 and Ariba still sell competing products rather than exclusively marketing a combined solution. In fact, AMR Research reports that sales reps from I2 and Ariba cooperate on some deals while competing on others.