Water2Water.com Becomes First Internet-Based Vertical Marketplace for Water and Wastewater, Azurix Signs Agreements

Azurix Corp. is expanding Water2Water.com, an Internet site for buyers and sellers of water and related services, to include procurement, which creates the first Internet-based vertical marketplace that will serve the full spectrum of needs for water and wastewater customers. In addition to enabling customers to transact business, Water2Water.com will offer several new procurement products, enabling customers to more efficiently procure and sell water-related equipment, services and chemicals. One of the first services to be available on the expanded site is MRO Desk™, which will serve as an Internet-based procurement network for customers seeking maintenance, repair and operations products. Additional products will be added throughout the year, including the Equipment Desk™, which will allow customers to conduct auctions and reverse auctions for new, used and excess equipment; Construction Desk™, which will facilitate project management and execution of construction projects, and WaterChem Desk™, which will enable customers to more efficiently buy and sell water and wastewater treatment chemicals. Water2Water.com also will provide interactive decision support tools as well as industry information from trade publications."Water2Water.com will provide value to customers by allowing buyers to leverage purchasing power across the industry's fragmented buying base in addition to giving customers the ability to more efficiently engage in the transfer and physical delivery of water and related services," said Rebecca Mark, chairman and chief executive officer of Azurix. "On the procurement side, buyers will experience lower unit costs resulting from real-time competitive bidding and access to a larger supplier base, and Water2Water.com will serve as a new low- cost channel with which sellers can reach an expanded buyer base. On the trading side of the business, participants now will be able to improve market transparency and price discovery."In addition, Azurix signed agreements with global information services leader EDS and other digital marketplace software providers that will provide technology to ensure that Water2Water.com will function as the premier online marketplace for procurement and trading. Azurix announced earlier this month that its trading exchange on Water2Water.com would be built on the Ariba business-to-business eCommerce platform.(Source: Azurix Corp.)