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`FEATURE
`Ford Starts Firm to Manage Its Web Sites
`
`Will serve as prime link to auto dealers
`
`By Computerworld staff
`FOLLOW
`Computerworld | Feb 28, 2000 12:00 AM PT
`
`In a deal dubbed a double-edged sword by one analyst, Ford Motor Co. last week launched a joint
`venture with Trilogy Software Inc. to create a separate firm to handle the automaker's Web-related
`business-to-business services.
`
`The new venture will act as Ford's Web services company, operating all of the automaker's
`consumer Web sites and serving as the primary Web interface to more than 6,000 Ford dealers. The
`venture will use e-commerce software from Trilogy in Austin, Texas.
`
`Officials said the still-unnamed company, to be located in Austin, should be operational within the
`next 30 days and have up to 300 employees by year's end. Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford has a
`majority stake in the venture.
`
`Rob DeSisto, an analyst at Gartner Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn., said the venture could free Ford
`from maintaining Web services, a noncore business. Yet he questioned whether Trilogy could
`provide the best software to support the venture.
`
`"This deal has to be put into perspective," he said. "Trilogy will provide most of the technology for
`them to be successful, but what Ford is really getting with Trilogy is some technology that has
`significant gaps in functionality relative to other competitors."
`
`Configuration Competition
`
`DeSisto said that Trilogy has failed to keep pace with competitors Selectica Inc. in San Jose and
`FirePond Inc. in Waltham, Mass., in terms of its configuration technology.
`
`"(These companies) are focused on different parts of the market with simpler configuration
`problems. Trilogy continues to dominate the high end of the configuration market for large Fortune
`500 companies," said Chris Porch, Trilogy co-founder and CEO of the new venture. "There is no e-
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`0001
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`Versata 2005
`Ford Motor v. Versata
`CBM2016-00101
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`commerce platform that does everything that a Fortune 500 company would need, but that is true
`for every vendor out there."
`
`The venture will offer a range of services, including car configuration and buying, repairs,
`maintenance and possibly rental services. It will also pass sales leads to dealers.
`
`"The big problem in the auto industry is disintermediation and channel conflict," said analyst Eric
`Schmitt at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. "This nicely sidesteps that problem and
`places Ford in the role of a central organization that provides the technology to bring in dealers at
`the end of the line."
`
`Computerworld staff
`
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`Copyright © 1994 - 2016 Computerworld, Inc. All rights reserved.
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