AMS And ARIBA To Launch First Electronic Marketplace For State And Local Government

American Management Systems (Nasdaq: AMSY ), a leading business and information technology consulting firm, and Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARBA ), the leader in business-to-business electronic commerce, today announced the launch of "Buysense.com" - the first Web-based marketplace designed to fundamentally transform the government purchasing process. Buysense.com will provide significant cost savings and operating efficiencies for state and local government organizations, institutions of higher education, and suppliers to these organizations in the procurement and trading of a wide range of goods and services. Powered by the Ariba Network(TM) platform and the Ariba ORMX(TM) application, this online marketplace represents the first Internet standards-based, extranet eCommerce solution for the government and education market. Greater Buying Power through Cooperative Solution Buysense.com is an AMS-hosted Web site built on top of the Ariba Network platform that users can access on a subscription basis. Because the solution does not involve software installation or require internal support for operations, government users can be up and running with Buysense.com in a short period of time. For suppliers, the Web technology for Buysense.com retains the supplier brand identity and can be configured once and then reused for other eCommerce transactions with multiple customers in the public sector. Employees of authorized government agency "buyers" connect to the site using the Ariba ORMX(TM) hosted application, they are able to search online supplier catalogs and place orders for goods and services through the Ariba Network platform quickly and easily from their desktop. By streamlining manual purchasing activities, government organizations will be able to reduce non-contract "maverick" buying and direct aggregated purchasing power toward preferred suppliers at lower prices. Additionally, an organization's purchasing department will need to spend less time processing employee purchase orders, allowing them to focus on strategic purchasing and managing supplier contracts and relationships.