Page 50: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 15, 2000)

EARbook • E'COMMERCE purchasing lifecycle, from planning through procurement to liquidation. The company has been active in pulling together deals, which enhance the functionality and value of its site, most recently aligning with freightquote.com, a provider of online freight services for ship- pers and e-commerce companies to offer its members freight logistics services, including access to online rating, scheduling, tracking, and reporting, using a single electronic inter- face.

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Site Name/Address mE-World/www. btme-world.com

Purpose

Suite of information, messaging, tracking and transaction services

Status

Launched last Autumn at the Europort exhibi- tion in Amsterdam. mE-World (Mobile Elec- tronic World) aims to provide all of the tools and services to manage merchant marine business from a PC or laptop. "mE-World is a unique and powerful 'total business environ- ment' that puts fleet management into the desktop or laptop," said Patrick Spink, head of external affairs, BT A&M and the mE-World program owner. He added: "It's not a first- generation e-shop that you may enter once a week or once a fortnight. This is a big step forward, an everyday all-day operational environment in which to run a marine busi- ness." The front-end to the system is a full- time desktop dubbed mE-Desk, which brings together all the functions of a fleet manage- ment office within a desktop environment. It also features a new mE-Mail multi-format communications platform, built on BT's new

ICIS communications engine, which is a uni- fied messaging and information system. With just one inbox and outbox, the user can process all common message formats includ- ing telex, fax. voice, video, e-mail, video, graphics and data files, as well as attached files.

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Site Name/Address www.OceanConnect.com

Purpose

Online Marine Fuel Supplier

Status

OceanConnect, which seeks to bring the business of buying ship's fuel online in a fast and price-efficient manner, has lined up a host of industry power in an attempt to make its yet-to-be launched service stand-out among the current and anticipated e-com- merce clutter. The most recent alliance was struck with ship broking group Horace Clark- son Pic, which will support

OceanConnect.corn's initiatives to develop credit insurance and swaps capability to the online marine fuels marketplace. Clarksons — the world's biggest shipbroking group — will also become an equity partner in Ocean-

Connect. Other partnerships include ship- ping companies Eletson Corporation, Key- stone Shipping Co and Stena Bulk AB plus

Japan's Nippon Mitsubishi Oil Company and energy information provider Petroleum Argus

The site, which is due up soon, will also fea- ture real-time information on pricing and product availability. Other investors include

BP Marine, Fuel and Marine Marketing LLC (FAMM is a joint venture between Texaco and

Chevron) and Shell Marine Products.

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Site Name/Address www.Shipbrokering.com

Purpose

Cargo Fixing Real Time

Status

Shipbrokering.com claimed to have had almost 400 members in less than 30 days of launching It is designed as an application for owners, brokers and charterers to match each other's requirements in real time. Mem- bers post directly their open Cargo, open

Vessels and T/C.

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Site Name/Address

ShipDesk

Purpose

Independent Chartering Exchange

Status

Unveiled mid last month, ShipDesk is the cul- mination of work of Tufton Oceanic, a leading shipping investment house; OptiMark, a U.S.- based electronic marketplace developer;

Antfactory. a pan-European e-business accelerator; and Whitney & Co., a global pri- vate equity firm. The service offers a wealth of industry expertise to support its electronic infrastructure, and Dirk Langeveld, former

CEO of Tufton Oceanic, is the organization's first CEO. The service purports to offer a highly secure and confidential "total freighting environment," from underlying commodity trade through post-fixture and voyage com- pletion. "ShipDesk will lead the migration of the $150 billion vessel chartering market to a fully screen-based environment," said

Langeveld. Apart from Langveld, ShipDesk offers a host of maritime industry talent to ensure its services are compatible with it's user's needs, including: Lars Hjaltman,

ShipDesk's chief technology officer and for- mer CTO at Gearbulk; Fred Doll, director and former director of H. Clarkson; Christoph

Toepfer, product development director and formerly with Tufton Oceanic: Peter Rygaard

Andersen, VP Marketing/PR and formerly head of marketing at BIMCO; and Jens-Erik

Olsen, head of ShipDesk's Hong Kong office and formerly MD of Trom Asia.

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Site Name/Address www.ShipVertical.com

Status

ShipVertical Internet Group, Inc. (ShipVerti- cal) has launched its Internet marketplace

The company introduced its registration web to business parties worldwide with a plan to roll out — in stages — a number of applica- tions during the second and third quarter of 2000. ShipVertical is a Vertical Marketplace, designed to unite a broad scope of business partners in the shipping industry to transform supply-chain management globally. The site broadly targets organizations involving ship owners and ship operators/managers to man- ufacturers, distributors, brokers, agents, intermediaries, and suppliers for matters including marketing, sales, procurement, dis- tribution, and delivery. To date the company claims that approximately 600 vessels, together with about 1,000 small, medium, and large businesses in the supply chain, will participate in the marketplace pilot phase.

Circle 85 on Reader Service Card © 2000 Carrier Transicold