ECMgt.com: May2000: Volume 2, Issue 5 - "Free" Extends into the B2B Space ECnow.com 2000 trends: "Free" Extends into the B2B Space

Theme: "Free" Extends into the B2B Space: http://ecnow.com/top10trends2000.htm

• June'00 Survey Question (http://ecmgt.com/May2000)
• Free B2B by Mitchell Levy (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/management.perspective.htm)
• Sponsors (Web Value Creation Conference, Etail2000 Conference, ECMsym.com Symposium, WorkZ.com) (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/sponsors.htm)
• Feature: Highlighted Reader Feedback  (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/feature.article.htm)
• Readers Comments (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/readers.comments.htm)
• E-News Sections (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/all-enews.htm)
• E-Strategies (sponsored by ECnow.com) (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/e-strategies.htm)
• E-Products (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/e-products.htm)
• E-Services (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/e-services.htm)
• E-Marketing (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/e-marketing.htm)
• E-Commerce Supply Chain (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/supply.chain.htm)
• Governance & Going Global (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/governance.going.global.htm)
• Partners & Deals (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/partners.deals.htm)
• Movers & Shakers (http://ecmgt.com/May2000/movers.shakers.htm)
• Becoming a Sponsor (http://ecmgt.com/sponsor.info.htm)
• Contributing to ECMgt.com (http://ecmgt.com/May2000)
• Contacting Us (http://ecmgt.com/contact.htm)
• Miscellaneous Info (http://ecmgt.com/May2000)

Thank you for your comments, suggestions and responses to our survey question. Please keep them coming. Let us know what you think by e-mailing us at mailto:ecmgt.comments@ecnow.com. We currently have over 3,700 subscribers, if you like what you read, please let your friends, clients and co-workers know.             

Our June issue deals with wireless applications becoming more common. Although wireless Internet access and their associated applications are exploding in Europe and Japan, they have not had as quick of a start in the United States. We'd like a fairly mixed global response on this one. Do you think that:

1. Wireless Internet access in the U.S. will have rapid adoption in 2000, possibly catching up to Europe and Japan?

2. Regardless of local, do you think that wireless technology will be incorporated into all sorts of standard business operations?

3. What types of "cool" wireless applications do you feel are available today and/or will be available in the next 6 months?

To respond to this question, please go to http://ecmgt.com/bulletinboard.htm or send e-mail to mailto:ecmgt.survey@ecnow.com. When you send your response, please list the city and country where you are located.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Just three short years after the introduction of free e-mail and free web hosting, the latest wave of free applications has been extended from the B2C market to the lucrative B2B market. The newest wave of free services targets businesses, and it includes e-commerce, messaging services, organizing applications, networking and storage services, and even vertical business portals supporting B2B auctions and providing complete portal management services.

While the “Free” model in the B2C space is based on building membership and accumulating knowledge of user profiles that can be leveraged for advertising, the business model for free B2B is not as clear. We'll examine a dozen entrants in the Free B2B space, propose a new model called "process share", and discuss up-selling business customers to premium services with recurring revenue as the Free B2B driver. An even more interesting model is developing where consumers and businesses both share benefits from portals that integrate community, content, and business processes.

Let's start with a quick tour of business productivity and infrastructure services, then move to B2B and market-to-market portal offerings, finishing with e-commerce and financial services.

In the messaging arena, businesses can benefit from free long distance, voice mail, faxing, and paging services. Given that the annual bill for faxes alone in the United States approaches 95 million dollars annually it’s no surprise that use of free fax applications is growing nearly as fast as the Internet itself.  The two most popular offerings, efax.com and jfax.com, offer a free universal fax number for receiving, and reasonable rates for enhanced premium delivery services to private fax numbers. We see the opportunity for a merging of "LAN Fax" with "free fax" or "fax over IP" as this business grows and most likely consolidates.

Free messaging services extend to voice, where firms phonefree.com and dialpad.com offer unlimited free long-distance phone calls to anyone in the United States. DialPad.com, which claims over 5 million users, has formed an alliance with eVoice to combine free VoiceMail with long distance calling. Onebox.com offers free voice-mail, e-mail, and fax, and has been recently acquired by Phone.com, indicating interest by service providers with global reach.

Related office productivity tools include WebEx, which offers a business exchange service to locate peers and a range of business service providers, as well as an on-line office forum in which to conduct on-line meetings. Following the premium-upsell model, they also offer a pay-per-use plan with enhanced office collaboration tools.

For businesses using press releases as marketing tools, WebWire offers PR professionals and corporate communicators a "free for a lifetime" tool to post press releases using the WebWire service. WebRelease makes press releases instantly available to conventional and emerging media.

Office supply procurement, a big expense for businesses of any size, has been made simpler by free Internet services from tradeout.com and onsale.com (a former business exchange specializing in liquidation). Both firms serve businesses shopping for bargains, and provide a perfect solution for firms needing to liquidate stock or hard goods.

Two services that provide direct marketing over the Internet for small merchants include ELetter and Microsoft bCentral. ELetter (www.eletter.com), an integrated direct mail solution managed via the Web, allows users to build a targeted mailing list, create a mailing piece, and generate Internet postage in one transaction. Microsoft's bCentral is an all-in-one business portal with free and low-cost premium services for banner and e-mail advertising. Microsoft does an excellent job of attracting users to the free services, and of promoting effective low-cost services following the premium-upsell model.

PayPal (www.paypal.com), is an interesting entrant, claiming to be the Internet's largest instant payment network, offering wire services over the Internet. While not a pure B2B play, it does appear to be positioned to enter the Internet escrow field, which appeals to merchants and hobbyists unable to acquire a conventional merchant account for processing credit cards.

Network Services, an expensive, time-consuming, and technically involved undertaking for any business, is the domain of x-drive.com and intranets.com. x-drive.com provides 100 Mbytes of free network disk storage, valued at $50 per month. Intranets.com offers free secure network storage of business content viewable by employee browsers. Access is controlled through passwords and I.P. addresses, ensuring security.

Vertical business portals focused on high-spending markets include PlasticsNet and Web MD. While PlasticsNET is a vertical business portal, Web MD merges the space of B2C and B2B, providing consumers access to medical content and physician information. The interesting approach of Web MD is the introduction of workflow; moving business documents among doctors, HMOs and insurance firms, a complicated task involving high dollar volumes. The introduction of transactive business processes to a portal with market share provides immediate value to customers and valuation to investors.

One of the most exciting areas in the business arena is the introduction of free electronic commerce functions, including complete web store building and hosting. In addition, complete e-commerce portal building tools are available to vertical industry leaders, communities  and geographical portals. Market entrants here include Bigstep, eCongo, FreeMerchant, and more recently, JustWebIt. Each of these firms offers a WYSIWYG store builder, including searchable catalogs, product display functions, and integrated shopping carts and payment services.

Of course, nothing if free, and they do so by offering  credit card processing services at a nominal rate. As merchants become successful, additional marketing and financial services are offered as premium upsells. Cardservice International, which offers credit card processing, and Smarton-line and OneCore, providing financial services, are examples of business services which migrate "free" merchants into recurring revenue opportunities.

The free commerce business model is extended to large aggregators of merchants, where revenue splitting of premium services is shared between portal builders and web store hosting services. Large firms building these portals include InfoUSA (consisting of over 150 ISPs with over 200,000 merchant members), and communities of interest such as The Black World Today

The most lucrative field in the B2B space is Financial Services, which serves traditional brick-and-mortar business as well as web-based business. One key entrant is SmartOnline.com, an Application Service Provider that provides a suite of services including legal and administrative, sales and marketing, finance and business, and human resources services. Onecore.com also offers a complete range of business services covering financial analytics, cash management, bill payment, payroll services, merchant services, leasing, and small business loans. As a Business Service Provider (BSP), Onecore follows the free / premium service model. BigCharts (www.bigcharts.com) is a free, professional-level, interactive graphical comparison tool that helps users create customized on-line financial content.

For B2C e-commerce sites, BizRate.com  helps merchants understand how buyers rate their sites and on-line shopping experiences.  BizRate.com provides access to 60% of all customers making on-line retail transactions.  NetRatings.com offers a free weekly e-mail newsletter called the Nielsen/NetRatings Reporter, which highlights headline news, top 25 weekly properties, top 10 advertisers, top 10 banners, and Web average use statistics.

So what is the business model for Free B2B?  Offering something for free is a technique for opening up markets and driving the "hockey stick", the inflection point where services like e-mail (Hotmail), web hosting (GeoCities), and e-commerce suddenly explode. Many users of new free services would not have tried a business service if it weren't free, and a substantial proportion will graduate to premium services that generate monthly recurring revenue for the provider.

But how are the free B2B services to be valued, and what is their future? We believe that a new model we call "process share" -- the intersection of market share with business process transactions -- is the new metric for valuation. Witness the valuation of phone.com, which developed and licenses a Web browser operating system for wireless phones, which are expected to become the initiation point for over 50% of stock trades within 3 years. 

Each of the free services mentioned above is a virtual market maker in a vertical market or a horizontal application, has a growing member base that is "transactive", and is pursuing an opportunity to garner a small fraction of a very large number of business transactions. Whether or not free is the motive and transactions are the reward, it is clear that "free" has entered the B2B space, with businesses of all sizes as the beneficiaries.

Let me leave you with a few of my favorite quotes this month:

***
The fact of the matter is that "free" works. 
(G.M., San Jose, California, USA)

***
Yes, giveaways help provided they bring in additional business. Like in the case of mobile phone operators, or the ISPs wherein they register customers for 3-5 years usage plans
(prem)

***
Large scale give-aways would not be that useful in B2B.  Tailored give-aways make sense. e.g. we offer a free ROI examination for Siebel implementations as a way of showcasing our Seibel talent to potential clients.
(L.L.)

I hope you enjoy this eZine.

See you in cyberspace,

 Mitchell Levy

Executive Producer, ECMgt.com <http://ECMgt.com>
President, ECnow.com <http://ecnow.com>
Founder and Coordinator, SJSU-PD ECM Certificate Program <http://ecmtraining.com/sjsu>
Chair, ECMsym.com ECM Symposium (Oct 4-5, 2000) <http://ecmsym.com>

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Highlighted Reader Feedback

Given that this is our most controversial trend, we've included 3 believers & 3 non-believers

***
The fact of the matter is that "free" works.  It's similar to having a credit card and paying for your products or services at a later date. Free today, pay with interest tomorrow.  It should work well in both the B2C and B2B worlds too. There's a certain "I got over feeling" when you get a freebie-whatever the payoff.  

In my industry phones are given away that cost us up to $200.00. If the consumer stays active with the carrier for 180 days, the commission we're paid ($200.00) is maintained. If the consumer stops service we are decommissioned and are forced to hunt down the buyer and retrieve the phone. It's risky.
(G.M., San Jose, California, USA)  

***
Yes, give-aways help provided they bring in additional business. Like in the case of mobile phone operators, or the ISPs wherein they register customers for 3-5 years usage plans 

I think this will work for B2Bs at least in the developing world where the awareness of the Internet is on the rise but the limited purchasing power may not allow easy movement to the Internet. In this case, give-aways of PCs and set top boxes would allow access and thereby business
(Prem)  

***
Yes, I feel that companies giving away products or services in the B2C world has been very successful.  This marketing technique can also be effective in B2B.  I'm the Marketing Manager for an executive conference company.  I am always looking for new direct mail, telemarketing, and email lists.  The bigger players/list brokers will usually supply a test list for sampling purposes.  This way I get to test the product (list) before committing to a purchase.  This has proven to be very cost effective for my company. 
(K.C.)

***
Businesses in the B2B area will not be impressed by other businesses giving away products. In fact, it may only lead to eroded margins at a time when Internet companies must become profitable.
(S)  

***
I don't think giving away products and services for free is a good idea. We are all used to those practically worthless and often futile give-aways used as a means of sales promotion, over decades. So I wouldn't expect a free product as mentioned in your mail being something valuable. Maybe this is an unjustified prejudice but there it is.

As a matter of fact, I do use professional software in my work, and I can't be bothered with checking on all that freeware available; I want to have a clean computer system, too. (In my first years using computers (mainly Mac), in fact I had a lot of free stuff on my system, and I must say that it mainly was there, without being used.)  

On the other hand, I do very much appreciate free web services like newsletters, provided they offer interesting news and above all useful practical tips, not only news about new products of a company (e.g. Excom or Apple or Aladdin Systems - you name them).
(R.B., Siebnen, SWITZERLAND)

***
I think if companies give the lowest price, quality merchandise and quality customer service is the most successful technique. Quick response to any problem / question, is the most successful technique. Companies don't care about free product as much as quality of the product or the quality of customer service and the most important respond time.
(Kev Gharibian, Ikos Systems)

Our bulletin board allows readers to comment on trends and issues throughout the month. Please stop by to add your comments and see all the responses at http://ecmgt.com/bulletinboard.htm

Question of the Month

The topic for May focuses on "Free" Extends into the B2B Space

Selected Answers of the Month

***
There is no question that firms giving away free items works well in the B2C world.  In traditional direct marketing, there is no stronger response trigger than "free." There are a number of office supply businesses that offer free gifts to the person who places the order - a free office tote, umbrella, or tin of gourmet cookies.  Clearly, the incentive is not for the B2B "customer" per se, but rather, for the person making the purchase decision. 
(M.S., Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

***
I absolutely believe that freebies will extend to the B2B community.  As a marketing tool, freebies are invaluable to draw people to your site and business.  You will always attract the attention of potential patrons (PP) who have an interest in what you're offering to begin with.  However, I think freebies draw the PP's who are on the fence about trying a new product or service.  Companies give income producing components of their businesses away all the time -- free shipping, 5% discounts for cash payments, free returns, the "baker's dozen" concept.  So, I don't see why freebies wouldn't continue in some form.
(L.R.)

***

1. Giving away product in the B2C works.

2. I think that giving away products in B2B would work.

3. I think there are many companies.  The companies that work with Mastercard in their Small Business Connections must have a value added offer, which in many cases is a free item.

(S.P., Los Angeles, California, USA)

***
Absolutely, YES, giving away products and services in the B2C world is a successful technique and it's already working in the B2B world. onProject.com gives you a month to try their on-line project planning.  I've been using it for less than a month.  I'll never go back to MS Project! PlanSoft is the other example of a freebie.  This is used for writing RFPs on-line.  You know the saying work smarter.  Well these 2 sites have made my job smarter not harder.

But, the next question you should ask; is how are these companies going to make any money?  And then do these companies become services or non-profits?
(S)

***
Yes, it will carry over to B2B.  I am consulting for a company in the B2B space and we believe in the concept of a giveaway program. So much so that we planning on implementing one ourselves.
(Susan Phillips Moskowitz, Santa Clara, California, USA)

***
I believe this trend will carry over from B2C to B2B. However, this trend will probably be a little different in the B2B space. In the B2C space there is usually a direct incentive to do commerce with the e-commerce vendor.  In the B2B space, the trend will probably address itself in 2 different ways to 2 different segments of the market:

1. For Start-ups.  The incentive in the B2B space will be to catch "rising star companies" and to provide them with the technical hardware, software, and consulting they require to become successful on the net.  In return, the alliance should create a revenue flow for the company providing the foundation for the startup.

2. For established companies, the incentive will probably be in the form of price reductions, prizes, and other "gifts" for doing business with the e-commerce site.  So, two types of incentives here - one to incent the new customer, and one to incent the returning or repeat customer.

(D.H., Mountain View, California, USA)

***
I just read an article that suggested this has become a fairly serious problem on the net. The basis of the article was that consumers are getting so used to getting a free gift or "free freight" from websites that there is a significant drop in usage when a company does not offer "something for free".
(T.W. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)

***
Yes, freebies is a very good and cost effective way to generate sales leads and engage our customers. The freebie concept may transcend from the B2C to the B2B space. However, the logistics of handling this may prohibit the widespread use of this concept.
(L.G., Silicon Valley, California, USA)

***
The goal of the giveaway is to gain market share. Unfortunately, giveaways have become so ubiquitous that they tend to be ignored. (I looked at iWon.com for about two days.) In my experience, the giveaway dot.coms have little to offer beyond the giveaway and customers tend to drift away shortly. There is no true value to the giveaway. I will not advertise a product simply to get free e-mail.

Most B2B sites are not designed to attract new customers but rather to attract B&M customers to a new method (adventure?) of transacting business. Giveaways will have little value except in those cases where it can be demonstrated that it will attract new, non-B&M customers. Even then, what will the giveaway be. I am hard pressed to believe a B2B customer would be enticed by trivial items, and if I had a buyer select a vendor because they offered him or her a trip to Hawaii, that person would be out on their ear in second.
(M.P., Silicon Valley, California, USA)

***
Well, you may call me a cynic, but I know that nothing is given away for free.  A loss leader or Gift w/ Purchase (gwp) and Purchase w/ Purchase (pwp) are successful promotional concepts that have been used for many years in retailing (I was previously employed for 7+ years w/ Dayton Hudson Corp).  Look at the gwp/pwp events that happen at the cosmetic counters.

Even though this type of promotion is extremely successful, it is a very big two edged sword.

The item you pick as your gwp/pwp must be something that your customer wants or thinks they could utilize.  If the cosmetic company picks the wrong combination of items for their gwp/pwp, the customer won't come in to purchase the minimum required amount of cosmetics to get the gwp/pwp.  Another side is that you are creating two customer expectations/behaviors, not company/brand loyalty.  Let's say a customer likes a brand of cosmetics and a certain department store.  If they need some cosmetics and they have become accustomed to receiving a gwp/pwp, they will go to which ever department store is currently running a gwp/pwp offer on their particular brand - not to the store they normally shop.  If their brand is not currently running a gwp/pwp and another is, you very well may loose them to the other brand for that particular purchase. The other behavior is that unless the cosmetic is an everyday need, they will not purchase until the next gwp/pwp offer.

The cost of the gwp/pwp has to go somewhere (just ask any accountant).  Think of the previously mentioned cosmetics industry.  How much lower could cosmetic prices be if the companies did not have to invest the vast sums they do in gwp/pwp promotions?  Would those lower prices then increase the frequency, quantity and dollars purchased?  Would there be increased department store loyalty and/or brand loyalty?  Would brand loyalty increase because their wonderful product is now affordable?
(D.H., Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA)

***
In the B2C world "giveaways" only work if your prime purpose is to attract eyeballs and customers.  Several of the models indeed were only created to establish a pool of customers with the specific intent of then selling off that pool of customers to a larger player.  With products "set top boxes" etc obviously here the intent is to sell the subsequent service,  an electronic "Razor".  Most of these customers are basically greedy and naive!  (No purpose in being nice about this) The give away worked because they do not calculate the real cost over time of the capability they are looking for. Indeed, down at the C world level, few can resist something for nothing and many, I fear, never effectively use the capability they sign up for. B2B is fundamentally different.  One tends to believe that we now have business people working business issues without fundamentally naive expectation!

I think that there will be those that try to leverage B2B with "giveaways" but that it is unlikely to succeed.  The scale is too large, the number of giveaways too costly, and both of the B's will in all probability, already have the facilities to get the job done.
(D.H.)

***
Free giveaways in B2C (e.g. first vitamin order free, up to $20) remind me of trade-show giveaways -- they get a lot of people to visit, but the percentage of high-quality leads is diluted.  The net effect: you make a lot of people aware of your presence, and they go away with either a mildy positive feeling about you, or with the sense that you were foolish to let them take advantage of you and get something for nothing.  Good for an advertising vehicle, not so good for generating real revenue. 

However, I have seen substantial discounts work effectively.  People expect to get a price advantage via the Internet, but this expectation is seldom fulfilled, because delivery costs usually outweigh the list price savings. But when BN.com offers a $15 discount on a book order of $25 or more, or CDNow gives a third CD if you buy 2, the deal is definitely better than the going street rate, and I'm sure they establish many new accounts that result in repeat business. (A couple of those $15 coupons got me to order over $400 worth of CDs, and I'm a rather conservative shopper.)  The most important thing the discounts do is to stop shoppers from looking elsewhere on the 'net.
(Jim Schibler, Santa Clara, California, USA)

***
I'm assuming you're not necessarily talking about promotional giveaways, but rather giving away the products or services that the business provides (e.g., listing of jobs; rentals, housing, etc.)  Giving away the products and services they provide means the e-business needs to bring in revenue another way.  When you've got millions of consumers coming to a site to get free services you can attract advertisers who want to reach this market. (Television advertising model--TV is free--advertisers pay to reach viewing audience.)

However B2B isn't the same market and using the "give away" model is more difficult.  The only way you could employ the same model is to have millions of businesses come to a particular site for free for something that they would otherwise pay for (e.g., online banking services).  The only problem is that the advertiser isn't guaranteed to reach the right market. Example: if the administrative person is using online banking to pay her boss' bills, she wouldn't necessarily be the same person who would make the decision to sign up for a new line of credit.

In B2C, the probability is greater that the consumer accessing the site is also the decision maker for future purchases, than for the B2B model.

I really can't think of where this "give away" model works in the B2B market.

B2B needs to look at the Internet differently.  Rather than attracting new customers and selling more services over the Internet, they need to look at ways to reach existing business customers more cost effectively and increase customer satisfaction (e.g., allowing their business customers to perform transactions themselves rather than having to call up and order products/services).
(K)

***
I see a great benefit in B2C in giving away both products and services. But I would like to talk about pros and cons trying to differentiate them.

Product: it is very important for the consumer/customer to have the chance to "use" the free product. In this way he can "play" with it, evaluate all the capabilities, find the ease-of-use, and see if it fits. And what about from the company point of view? If the product is ready, then the company can only benefit of this promotion. 

Services: This is the best of the freebies. Consumers not only want "the product", they want added value. This can be easily done with free services. Quicken is a good example. How would you evaluate Quicken products versus Microsoft products? If you compare only the products, a feature vs. feature comparison will uncover almost the same features. However I like Quicken because the services provided by their web site: portfolio tracking, stock news, etc.

B2b is different than B2C. I do not see how freebie products can be a good marketing tool. I may be too much extreme (and funny), but I do not see GM using a fuel check valve in production cars just because it is free!!! This means that companies look for a mature product or they try to achieve a standardization of used tools and eventually they prefer not to "test" a product rather they prefer to "use" it. The product may be "tested" off line, in a testing environment or lab. However I see services, again, as the winner!!! Free services (such as search, tips, news, etc.) can be used by a company to improve their own daily quality and/or productivity.

Microsoft is a good example. I am a software product manager and, personally, I do not like having my products developed based on a beta and free version of a new OS. Too risky for the products that I have to propose to my customers. I rather have developers using the "old", tested and familiar OS. However, having MSDN on line is great!!!!. Tips, news and search are easily available for developers, solving immediately questions, finding tips for new techniques and so on.
(A.G.)

***
I believe giving something away will temporarily attract someone's attention but long-term stickiness will eventually come down to how worthwhile and applicable the products or services are to the company.

Most companies must still look at all the ramifications of incorporating a product or service into their business or engineering processes before a long-term commitment is made.  Multifunctional operations have a way of forcing an evaluation of a product or service so I also believe that the "give-aways" get attention but may not get long-term use in the drive industry.  Example offers to provide vendor catalogs may not be useful if they cannot be incorporated in the Purchasing Process in a reliable and convenient manner.

Examples -- CD that provide standardized semiconductor device specifications and configuration information in a interactive manner will tend to get a design engineer's attention and business. Once a design engineer calls a part out then it becomes a part of the OEM product.  Companies that provide direct access to data files can provide a strategic advantage to the seller.
(F.L.)

***
B2C Give Away has certainly been used as one technique to attract visitors / customers / return customers. On one level, every good website is a "gift" to its users. That will continue into the future. But giving away items that have a significant cash value may not continue too much longer. The market may be shifting, real profit may be increasingly important. When that happens, the free gifts will be reduced, ... other than the free gift of information.

Free gifts are not that large a part of North Amercian B2B business practices. In other countries, "free gifts" are common, e.g. the need for bribes to make things happen. I don't see bribes coming back in North America. I do see discounts and benefits to long-term customers as a continuing feature of B2B transactions. And "free" information on the company website.

The obvious "gift" is providing information that strengthens the business connection with the visitor. That's the whole idea behind B2B portals. They are currently popular and I see no reason why that will not continue into the future.
(R.F.)

***
No, give aways very seldon create loyal customers
(S)

***
Yes, I do think "giving things away" in the B2C mode works...People love free stuff, whether it's in the supermarket or the on the Net...I know personally I'll download free software from a lot of sources, but am VERY reluctant to "pay" for the latest upgrade...My reasoning is that I rarely feel I "need" anything "that" much ..can do with the free stuff and occasionally find the "pay" material a bit pricey. But what the free stuff does do is keep me coming around, poking around and looking at specific sites, reading through their material, exploring their links, etc.. And occasionally, I'll even click into an advertisers site as a result if I see something that interests me...I see it very much like the supermarket or maybe more specifically, the "specialty shop" model. People will come to buy something they "need" but while there will pick up a free sample or two and maybe end up shopping and buying another product as a result of being there longer. The longer you keep 'em in the store, the more likely the chance of a sale.  

I think the "free' concept could also work in a B2B model, maybe even more so... I'm just not sure how at this point because I don't know of anyone offering B2B services or Apps for free...
(O&O, Edmonton, CANADA)

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Data Junctions and XMLSolutions are among the vendors that have developed tools that translate legacy data into XML.

Mega-proxy servers: A load of trouble?
Some e-commerce sites are learning the hard way that the very tools they use to improve Web site performance could contribute to lost revenue.

B2B apps are a hot item on menu
Build-it-yourself isn't always practical in the get-it-up-and-running-yesterday world of e-commerce. That's why a number of companies, such as Ariba and Commerce One, are offering B2B operators do-it-quick e-commerce capabilities.

Amazon getting into wine business
The online retailing giant is expected to announced Tuesday that it is acquiring an equity stake in Wineshopper.com, a new Internet-based wine seller.

Giveaway sites win big with Web sweepstakes
Users may be winning cash, but operators of Web giveaway sites are reveling in big traffic numbers and loads of customer data.

• Amazon’s Lovely Mortar
• Food.com delivers dinner to your door
• Lack Of Application Integration Hinders E-markets
• Major Plastic Companies to Form Online Marketplace
• Mall Developers Fight Back
• Online Sales Transform Antiquarian Book Market
• Outpost.com Launches Same-Day Delivery
• Priceline.com expands car offering
• Sony Pledges Online Music Sales Via Retailers
• Walgreen to Join 11 Retailers in Exchange
• Offerings ease supply-chain issues
• Web shopping for the very impatient

Offerings ease supply-chain issues
New products and services are emerging to make supply chain processes more manageable and less risky.

Portals Start to Feel the Heat
Some commerce sites are going to have trouble paying for their pricey portal deals. The pacts are becoming a liability for everyone.

Auto exchanges: Will speed kill?
In their rush to launch B2B exchanges, automakers are in danger of leaving their suppliers in the dust.

Top U.S. bank to open B-to-B marketplace
Bank of America has joined forces with Ariba Inc. to create a business-to-business online marketplace.

Pat Fili-Krushel's Good Times
To Pat Fili-Krushel, "new media" once meant cable. But in a few days,the former president of ABC, who took the network from No. 3 to No. 1, becomes president and chief executive of WebMDHealth, an Internet consumer health care division of Healtheon/WebMD. Now it's time to adapt to the new, new thing.

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