Mountain View, California-based Ariba Technologies Inc has announced a general release of its flagship product which promises a revolution in the way that companies buy their supplies. The Ariba ORM Operating Resource Management System automates a process which in most companies is still paper based and enables them to take advantage of the best bargains in the growing field of online trading. Ariba was founded in September 1996 to develop applications for the emerging ORM market and has so far signed agreements with Cisco Systems, Advanced Micro Devices and Octel Communications. The company says its products are developed from an intersection of technology trends: the installation of enterprise-wide intranets, Java computing and the development of more advanced Network Application architecture. First launched in May this year, the Ariba ORMS is designed to automate the entire purchasing cycle, enabling large organizations to better manage and control operating resources, starting with end-user requests and finishing with receiving and payment. Ariba is also promoting the ORMS’ authenticated approval flow, designed to automatically enforce business rules and validate requests across the enterprise. It comes with enterprise system adapters enabling it to be integrated into existing systems such as Human Resource Management Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning, e-mail and supplier systems. A set of reports, graphs and charts is also built in for supply chain analysis. Licensing and implementation costs range from $750,000 to $4m, based on the size of the enterprise.