To be up and running within the next six to 12 months, the project will be executed through its Hyderabad-based Indian subsidiary eComServer India.

The company is presently in talks with several trading exchanges and industry majors for tie-ups and alliances in this regard, ComServer Inc co-chairman Harish Fabiani told eFe. EcomServer will be looking for parterships with a host of domain experts and leading buyers in the commodities space. Fabiani said the partnerships could range from tie-ups to equity relationships. "We are open to giving equity stake to partners in the project," he added.

Fabiani said the online trading portal will be very comprehensive in nature and cater to markets in India and abroad. The first phase of the business-to-business project, incuding setting upof a trading and exchange portal, is expected to be completed around the year-end with an investment of around $5 million. "The state-of-art software running the exchange will cost a few million dollars," Fabiani said.

The B-to-B exchange portal also plans to enter futures trading as and when it is permitted in the country. Ecomserver might follow an ASP model.

Fabiani said eComServer will also entering into R&D related to WAP, GPRS and Blue Tooth technology. Started in 1999, with offices in Mardrid, Singapore and R&D facilities in Hyderabad, the company has set a revenue target of $12 million for the year 2000. He said the company has been valued many times over its current revenue stream and has struck partnerships with several leading technology providers including Lucent Technologies. EcomServer Inc is a B-to-B solutions company which is into developing e-com framework, integration tools and XML-based search engines. It also offers training to several industry segments including banking and insurance.