Do B2B marketplaces, like the one being put together by Ford, GM, and DaimlerChrysler, have the potential to become anti-competitive behemoths? Maybe so, according to this report from The Industry Standard. And the magazine may have a point. A Tweney Report subscriber wrote to me this week, saying he was considering taking a job with another automotive exchange, one that would compete with the one being set up by the Big Three. Did I think there was room for more than one such market maker? he wanted to know. I had to say I didn’t think so — without the big car companies, what kind of an automotive industry exchange would it be?
One ironic effect of the whole B2B trading hub craze, as the Economist points out (quoted in the article below), is that it’s made industrial chemicals and metal stamping *sexy*. Wonder how long that effect will last?
B-to-B Exchanges: The Next Microsoft?
