COMPANY LAUNCHES THE eAQUIB2B IN BRAZIL TO SERVE CORPORATIONS. IN THE COMING YEAR THE SERVICE GOES TO MEXICO, ARGENTINA AND CHILE AND WILL BE FOLLOWED UP BY A CONSUMER VERSION.

December 7, 1999

Jô Elias

Brazilian companies now have a gateway to computer product sales, the eAQUIB2B. It is the opening venture of Latin eVentures, an electronic holding company based in California. In the first three months of the year 2000 Latin will be taking the operation to Mexico, Argentina and Chile, in that sequence. In order to put its idea of selling on the Web into practice, Latin is forming a partnership with Ingram Micro.

In Brazil the service started with five companies testing the eAQUIB2B: Antarctica, Santista, Nestlé, Ecovias and GR (of the Accor Group). In January it will be fully operative, enabling customers to buy items from a menu of 10,000 hardware and software products from 40 suppliers, such as Compaq, Apple, 3Com, IBM, Microsoft and Novell.

The service enables purchasing managers to customize the page for each user level. They can thus take better advantage of the array of product options available for every area of the business and modify on their own sites (operating as extranet, requiring a password in order to be accessed), the status levels of the party seeking access.

According to Cenmar Fuentes, president of Latin eVentures, the company should be entering the direct consumer trade around April. "At the start only with computer products, but we are then going to expand into other categories," he remarked. He did not say what the investment is in introducing the services here and in other countries in Latin America, nor what the billing prospects will be.

Related site: www.latineventures.com