These vertical exchanges which would currently be available as an application services (ASP), will also be sold as independent software products by Oracle as part of its e-business suite in the world market shortly. The three verticals can be integrated with Oracle Exchange Marketplace, an existing B2B trade solution of the company.

Explaining the new vertical solutions, Mr Shekhar Das Gupta, managing director of Oracle India said that these exchanges will enable online collaboration between companies, customers, partners and suppliers in the supply chain, transportation and product development activities.

Going by the trend emerging into B2B markets, the applications of these online exchanges are being set up under three business models. One, the large companies like Ford is setting up such exchanges for their online activities with business partners. Two, some companies are forming consortium to create a joint exchange and third, independent companies are hosting such exchanges in data centres and offering services under ASP model, said Mr Das Gupta.

At present, Oracle in the US is hosting its all B2B exchanges and providing these services but it will soon be offering these exchanges as e-business solutions to be deployed on customers sites and data centres, said Mr Das Gupta.

Oracle has also tied up with more than 30 companies worldwide to become the exchange partners. These partners will provide a range of integrated value added services for Oracle Exchange users. Explaining it further, Mr Das Gupta said that partners like Citibank will also be integrated to the exchange and help in completing financial transactions including payments, financing, escrow, security and trust services.

The similar services like catalog management, customer support, transportation, incubation and content management will be provided by other partners. Some of the major partners which have already tied up with Oracle for the purpose include, ABN Amro, Bank of Tokyo, Citibank, TIBCO, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers.