UK startup Ace-Quote.com will next Wednesday launch an online marketplace for IT vendors and services companies. Using the service, buyers can place a request for a service or product on the web site’s category-based directory, which can then be viewed on the web by a vendor or service provider, or forwarded to them. The vendor pays 695 pounds ($1098) a year to use the service, which essentially provides them with sales leads and a facility to submit tenders to the customer for 1.70 ($2.70) per day. The buyer uses the service for free, and is given an email-forwarding facility by Ace-Quote to provide anonymity from vendors. The self-financing firm, which formed a year ago and has spent the last four months developing its software, will launch formally on July 5, after a week-long marketing campaign in UK newspapers, but the service already has 700 combined vendor and buyer users.
