Ariba took the purchase order, a dull back-office form, and turned it into a Wall Street star. In the 1990s big companies bought pens and computers through paper forms and phone calls. Ariba moved that buying to the web. Employees chose items from an online catalog, managers approved them, and orders went to suppliers electronically. When Ariba went public in June 1999, business-to-business commerce was the hottest idea on Wall Street, and Ariba was its clearest example.

Fortune in the Back Office

Keith Krach and a group of co-founders started Ariba in Silicon Valley in 1996. The bet was that procurement, a dull back-office task, was a large market waiting for the web. Ariba's software cut the cost of processing a purchase order. It also steered spending toward preferred suppliers. Ariba built a network as well, so a supplier could connect once and reach many buyers.

The Network Outlasts the Bubble

Ariba priced its offering at $23 a share in June 1999, and the stock soared on its first day of trading. At its peak the company was worth tens of billions of dollars. It lost most of that value when the bubble burst. Ariba cut costs and refocused on its supplier network, which became its lasting strength. SAP bought Ariba in 2012 for about $4.3 billion.

Cover: Ships in the Harbor at Sète, Gustave Le Gray. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a harbor (where buyers and sellers meet).