With the elevation of the Singapore office of Ariba Inc., a business-to-business electronic-commerce provider, to Asia-Pacific headquarters status, the company has heightened its commitment to the region.

"Last year in this region we were only present in Australia, said Rajiv Srinivasan, director of marketing for Asia-Pacific, Ariba Singapore. "This year, we have opened other offices in Asian cities including Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangalore, Seoul, and Tokyo."

"We have also recruited regional systems integrator partners, namely DA Consulting Group (DACG), HCL Perot Systems, and Tata Consulting Services (TCS)," he added.

Currently, the Singapore office has 15 staff, but the vendor plans to increase this to 40 by year's end, which is about the staff size of its current entire Asian operations.

Ariba also announced plans with Singapore company Bex.com, to enhance business opportunities for their customers through the creation of comprehensive global online trading communities for business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce.

Using Ariba technology, Bex.com will host an Internet B2B e-commerce vertical portal on its global network to allow businesses to conduct secure, online business transactions from front-end order processing and management, to back-end trade document exchange, financial payment, logistics and settlement.

The exchange would allow Ariba customers to access additional distribution channels via bex.com's network of manufacturers and supply chains of its e-marketplaces in Greater China, Southeast Asia, Japan, the U.S., Australia, and Thailand. Bex.com customers, in turn, would have access to Ariba's network of manufacturers and suppliers operating across the Ariba network.