Lante, SolutionCentral.com team to court IT workers

Internet consulting firm Lante said it is working with
SolutionCentral.com to develop an online marketplace for information
technology workers.

Lante, which focuses on helping companies develop business-to-business
trading exchanges, plans to expand SolutionCentral's existing IT resource
Web site into an online marketplace targeting businesses with large IT
staffs, the company said. To date, SolutionCentral's Web site targeted
individual IT professionals, providing them online resources, such as
industry roundtables and technical training programs.

Through the new SolutionCentral marketplace, Lante said companies will be
able to create a tailored training curriculum for their large IT staffs over
the Internet and develop standards for allowing network managers and system
administrators to enroll and take classes on new technologies. The
marketplace will allow companies to track and better manage all of the
training that different IT professionals need to receive as well as drive down
paper work and time involved in finding the best-priced training programs.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In recent weeks, a growing number of business-to-business marketplaces have
been popping up, targeting a
wide range of fragmented industries and markets, including oil and gas,
food, pharmaceutical, apparel and auto manufacturing. Companies are moving
their supply chain online, aiming to reduce the paperwork and time involved
in purchasing, manufacturing and inventory.

The market for business-to-business e-commerce is expected to explode in the
coming years, striking an interest from a wide range of technology providers
in recent months, including Lante rivals EDS, Andersen Consulting as well as
other software and hardware providers. Leading research firms have projected
the market to reach between $2.7 trillion and $7.3 trillion by 2004, from
about $131 billion last year.

Lante, which went
public in
February, is one of the few Internet consulting firms solely focused on
business-to-business e-commerce projects, providing companies with Web
design, strategy, consulting and the complex systems integration work
entailed in developing these massive online exchanges. But, as the market
for business-to-business e-commerce continues to boom, a number of Internet
consulting firms are jumping in the game.

Earlier this week, Internet consulting firm AppNet signed a deal with
business e-commerce software maker Commerce One to jointly develop online
marketplaces for the financial services, automotive, manufacturing and oil
industries. Bethesda, Md.-based AppNet will also become a preferred partner
for providing consulting services to Commerce One customers.