Internet Mavericks: Still Working Out of the Garage?

 

e-Commerce is consolidating, but there's room for the little guys too.

Thomas Edison built the electric utility industry virtually from scratch out of his workshop, so can Internet mavericks do the same for e-commerce? Or has the moment passed for the garage startups, leaving it to the big utilities—or better yet, the large conglomerates and multi-company joint ventures—to attract capital and introduce the new ideas?

Perhaps there is still room for both. Or at least that was our take, here at the Fortnightly. On that assumption, we interview four chief executives of new e-commerce startups: two from large, well-funded industry giants, and two from smaller, niche-type ventures.

"We are connecting suppliers and buyers over the Internet," says Joe Zelechoski, interim chief executive officer of Enporion, a business-to-business e-procurement exchange and industry alliance that has been attracting new utility members recently. We also interview Andy Patterson, vice president for strategic analysis at American Electric Power. AEP was one of a group of electric utilities that announced plans in July to launch a web-based exchange for arranging transmission capacity, a venture that heads boldly into the unsettled earth of regional transmission organizations.

These projects suggest that e-commerce is consolidating, with the venture capital migrating to the larger, more established enterprises.

But don't tell that to Cody Graves of Automated Energy Inc., or Jason Ambrose, of Plurimi Corp. They are attempting to carve out their own niche as crucial players in the race to energy deregulation and competition.