THE WIRED INDEX
Trailblazing B2B exchanges have quickly attracted stalwarts like WIRX's DaimlerChrysler, Lucent, and FedEx with promises of huge cost savings. But too many of these hubs are anchoring their businesses to too few market megaliths, making a B2B shakeout as inevitable as a rush-hour traffic jam. As the B2B hub's 15 minutes of fame come to an end, the action will shift to the metahub.
Today's hubs are vertical – they serve specific industries like plastics (PlasticsNet) and biochemicals (Chemdex). Their main benefit is to bring buyers and sellers together with extraordinary efficiency – but in a networked world, enabling transactions is a low-margin commodity business. Competitive pressure will force related hubs to consolidate. These consolidated vertical groups will extend their value by plugging into other exchanges that provide horizontal services: legal, accounting, insurance, escrow, and so on. Behold the metahub.
Right now the closest thing is e2open, a network created by IBM and partners to connect exchanges devoted to electronics, telecom, and technology patents. e2open will glue together back-end processes to deliver the efficiency that current exchanges have promised.
Meanwhile, WIRX companies i2 Technologies, Oracle, and BroadVision are headed in the same direction. TradeMatrix, i2's flagship product, will support metahubs by managing transactions, supply chains, and customer relationships in an integrated way. Oracle is a sure bet to supply metahub infrastructure, and tools like BroadVision's commerce platform will be indispensable.
– Phil Hood (phood@digital4sight.com)
INDEX PERFORMANCE (as of 7/1/00)
Name Since 11/30/95 Previous 12 mos. YTD
| WIRX | +460.15 % | +44.23 % | +7.07 %
| Nasdaq Composite | +274.44 % | +47.65 % | -2.54%
| Dow Jones Industrials | +105.89 % | -4.77 % | -9.13 %
The Wired Index tracks 40 public companies selected by editors of Wired to serve as a bellwether for the new economy. For a complete description and the latest results, see stocks.wired.com. Data courtesy Bloomberg Financial Markets.
| NEW MONEY
| Power Hubs
