As loyal readers know, for the past few years I have tried to keep a running list of  B2B commerce software providers categorized by vertical and horizontal segment.  With this post, I’m giving up the cause and publishing my final version.  I understand the sadness and confusion this may cause for many of you, but you will recover!

I’m publishing my last graphic for several reasons:

1.  The original point of the list was to demonstrate the incredible variety of companies engaged in facilitating intra-enterprise commerce, both in vertical industries and in particular portions of the “procure to pay” or “order to cash” process across verticals.  The 500 companies on this latest graphic make the point sufficiently .

2.  Each time I work in a new industry, I discover at least 10 new companies that need to be added to graphic.   This demonstrates the futility of maintaining an even moderately complete list.  In addition, whenever I talk to really smart VC/PE folks who understand intra-enterprise commerce software (e.g., JMI, TCV, Polaris), they have whole teams of analysts who have put together much more impressive lists!  At this point, we are safe to assume every industry has 5+ companies trying to weave together an industry platform.

3.  Many of the companies in the graphic are growing, in part, by expanding across verticals or business processes, so the companies are becoming harder to characterize.  In fact, I now think a much more useful segmentation is to divide the platforms by the primary value propositions they offer, rather than by the vertical or horizontal segment they serve.  I’ll be writing about that segmentation in the future.

4.  Finally, I’m really tired of the tediousness of putting the graphic together.

So here is my latest, and final, B2B Commerce Provider graphic.  See prior postings for the usual caveats.  On this one, I stopped adding healthcare platforms and ad platforms because they were going to take over the whole diagram.  Enjoy, and keep it as a collector’s item.