B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

B2B to P2P Evolution 483
2. Trace new buyers and sellers;
3. Keep aggregates of all products offered for purchase and catalog
sale;
4. Maintain folders detailing products vis-a-vis prices for comparison;
5. Provide workflow function to automate deal closing procedures
consequent to finalization of negotiations; and
6. Store the terms of deals in archives after their consummation.
16.4.5. Information discovery using search engines
Search engines are among the most widely used applications based
on P2P technology. According to Forrester research, approximately 2 C
10 E 18 bytes of data is produced in the world every year, out of which
only 3 C 10 E 12 bytes of data is published (i.e. only a single byte out
of every megabyte of information generated is physically published).
Even the most advanced search engines such as Yahoo, Altavista and
Google search only a small fraction of the total information that is
published. Therefore, current search engines cannot provide up-to-date
and precise searches of electronic data like catalogs and industry news
that is increasing at an exponential rate daily.
Search engines are relevant in several aspects of B2B e-commerce.
For example, buyers can search across suppliers' computers and see
real-time prices. InfraSearch is a typical example of a P2P-based search
engine. Its technology makes it possible for content companies to return
more useful results when searched. For example, database-driven sites
can retrieve formatted results from within their databases, which is not
possible with typical search engines.
16.4.6. Eliminate the need for cataloging in
multiple formats
P2P helps in resolving suppliers' problems of publishing, distributing
and maintaining catalog information. It frees them from the hassle of
distributing the catalogs in multiple formats, as expected by B2B emarketplaces
and buyers. With P2P-based applications, suppliers have
full control of data format.