Despite the almost daily announcements from all over the world about the creation of emarketplaces, IDC believes projections calling for thousands of emarketplaces by 2004 are overzealous. IDC is much more conservative, forecasting only several hundred emarketplaces in 2004.
“eMarketplaces are just one segment of the business-to-business ecommerce landscape,” said Dr. Leo Lipis, senior analyst for IDC’s eMarketplace Services research program. “Among genuine emarketplaces, many of those announced will not be built, many of those built will not survive, and many of those that survive will consolidate into super-emarketplaces.”
According to IDC, an emarketplace is an Internet-based broker of goods or services within a community of sellers and buyers. It must have an open structure and a level playing field for all participants.
Although IDC believes the number of actual emarketplaces will be finite, the market research firm is confident plenty of opportunity will still exist for service providers.
