USA: Plans For Apparel B2B Venture Scrapped

Applied Intranet Technologies (Ai), Gerber Scientific and Internet Capital Group have decided that they will no longer pursue a previously announced joint venture in the online apparel industry. The three companies had planned to build and operate a global business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce site for designing, sourcing, and manufacturing apparel and sewn goods. The open Web-based B2B marketplace would have connected all segments of the apparel manufacturing and distribution chain, from fiber through to retail, facilitating e-commerce transactions in a secure linked environment. But in a statement, Mike Todaro, Ai's director of marketing admitted that "during a period of due diligence it was mutually determined that the integration of products, services and strategies would take longer than would be prudent for the companies. As a result all parties have agreed not to further pursue the transaction."