Ariba, IBM to integrate commerce, LotusLive tools

Ariba said Wednesday that it will integrate its Ariba Commerce Cloud with IBM LotusLive in an effort to add more liquidity to the business-to-business market.

On Tuesday, Ariba launched its Commerce Cloud. The Commerce Cloud is a Web based system for enterprise commerce with suppliers. The Ariba Commerce Cloud includes applications for spend management, finance, sales generation as well as a trading community.

For IBM's LotusLive, the Ariba move is another addition to its network of services. The idea with the IBM and Ariba partnership is to use collaboration tools to better match buyers and sellers through the interest, purchasing and contract phases.

IBM of late has been adding partners for LotusLive. In April, IBM said it will layer in new services from UPS, Skype and Salesforce into a bundle.

Also check out Spend Matters' Jason Busch's take on the IBM-Ariba possibilities.