From “The Forrester Wave™: eSourcing Suites, Q4 2005”, Andrew Bartels issued a specific report about Verticalnet in November 2006 and said:
Verticalnet’s eSourcing suite ranks third in current offering, behind Ariba and Emptoris but ahead of other specialists.It scores well on spend analysis (behind Emptoris but ahead of Ariba) and RFx and auction support. It also has good but not outstanding scores for supplier discovery and assessment and sourcing decision. Sourcing activity management scores are merely average, as are scores for integration tools and hosting options. Globalization is a strength, however, and will improve when the Digital Union acquisition is finalized. In terms of strategy, Verticalnet has been using acquisitions to fill function or feature holes and so far has had the financial resources to do so. However, its financial performance will need to improve to sustain this strategy. Like other specialists, it will face competitive pressure both from Oracle and SAP as well as from lower cost application service providers (ASPs).
Source: Forrester