At the top of the bubble in 2000, Commerce One was worth $21.5 billion. Its pitch was business-to-business trade. Companies spent fortunes buying office supplies, parts and services through paper catalogs and fax machines. Commerce One offered software to do that buying online, plus a hosted exchange, MarketSite, where buyers and sellers could meet. When it filed to go public in 1999, B2B was the hottest phrase on Wall Street.

A Father and Son Start-Up

Tom Gonzales and his son, Thomas Gonzales Jr., started the company in 1994 as DistriVision. It renamed itself Commerce One in 1997, after Mark Hoffman became chief executive. The company sold BuySite software that let employees order approved goods from their desks. MarketSite linked those buyers to suppliers on a shared network. The bet was that corporate buying would move online the way consumer shopping had started to, and that whoever ran the exchanges would collect a cut.

A 190 Percent Pop, Then Bankruptcy

Commerce One priced its shares at $21 in July 1999 and listed on Nasdaq as CMRC. The stock rose 190 percent on its first day. By 2000 the company was worth $21.5 billion. Then the dot-com crash hit, and few of the online exchanges drew the trade they promised. Revenue shrank and losses piled up. Commerce One filed for bankruptcy in October 2004. A Novell subsidiary bought part of its patents that December for $15.5 million.

Cover: Marketplace with Sunshades, Rodolphe Bresdin. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a crowded marketplace (B2B exchanges).