Highlights
Partners include HP, Accenture, Ernst & Young, Cisco, Deloitte Consulting, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Sun Microsystems.
Clients include Aetna, Alcoa, Bank of America, Chevron, Cisco, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Pfizer, Staples, and Volkswagen.
Ariba is a poster child for the tech downturn. Several years ago, experts pointed to the company as one that would fundamentally change the way companies do business, and the company’s stock had a sky-high price-to-earnings ratio as a result. But the tech downturn washed away a lot of the desire to experiment with unproven business technologies, and Ariba’s revenues stumbled badly. Since then it has picked itself up modestly, although its net income is still in the red. Founded in 1996, Ariba designs and manufactures operating resource management products (ORMs) to track and manage online supply purchases, route order transactions, manage expense reports, target preferred suppliers, and connect buyers with suppliers and distributors. The company went public in 1999, after launching the Ariba Network, an online platform that connects Ariba software users with supplier networks. It acquired FreeMarkets, a supply management company, for $493 million in 2004.