This Big Debate will be the subject of our latest TweetChat, taking place on Friday 11 June 2010 at 4pm GMT. Do a search on #pldebate in your Twitter client, or go to TweetChat and search on #pldebate to get involved. The session will run for an hour maximum and will look at whether the Ariba Commerce Cloud is a gateway to much greater collaboration.

Cloud computing: for so long, so much talk about how it would revolutionise the way the world does business. But in recent weeks spend management company Ariba has launched its Commerce Cloud to much acclaim – a move to position itself at the front of internet-based collaboration. So is it finally time to drop the scepticism?

To quote from our news story from last week: “At the heart of the commerce cloud vision is collaboration and networking; between buyers and vendors, between clients of Ariba and between the developers of and users of systems.” Ultimately, what the platform does is something that spend management solution providers have been threatening to do for a while - make full use of internet-based technology.

A blog written by the Procurement Intelligence Unit provides an interesting breakdown, here, including several quotes from senior executives who are not only positive, shall we say, but adamant that this will significantly change the way they interact with their suppliers and the rest of the business.

However, while it’s hard just yet to find much negative being said about the announcement, before we get too carried away, there are a couple of questions to answer.

As Duncan Jones of Forrester Research puts it on his blog, here: “the big question is whether Ariba can achieve the universal reach that the commerce cloud will need if it is to deliver value to its members.” Somewhat of a chicken-and-egg situation there perhaps?

Jason Busch over at Spend Matters seemed bound to have a strong view on a potentially influential piece of technology like this, and while he was, again, positive, he had some warnings too. “I'd like to see Ariba spend part of the airtime it's positioning with the cloud in investing in truly leading product innovation and staying on their solution message,” he said.

Either way, if this is to become truly integral to the procurement process, there’s a long way to go in terms of doing what it will take to get the buy-in with the various stakeholders and convincing the larger community of its value and there’s little room for half-measures.  

But could it change things? More importantly, will it change things? This platform, it seems, has the potential to unlock innovation and collaboration in the purchasing field. But haven’t we heard that before...?

Let’s hear you views.

Steve Hall is senior staff writer of Procurement Leaders. To find out more about the magazine, click here.