Rearden Commerce has pulled off a coup: a b-to-b marketplace with elegant EBS (Employee Business Services) based on SOAs (service-oriented architectures) that may solve the same identity-based services problem Microsoft attempted but failed with its HailStorm initiative. Tech luminaries such as Adam Bosworth and Jon Bosak, and a slew of newly-signed enterprise customers are singing the praises of Rearden Commerce as it extends enterprise purchasing control to business services and sets a high-water mark for Internet apps with its unique SOA platform.An InfoWorld Special Report, “Rearden Commerce’s services on demand,” shows that Rearden’s EBS, delivered through the browser, is capable of automating the purchase of many everyday services, including shipping, conferencing, meals, entertainment, and even travel. Already onboard as of today’s launch are corporate customers Cingular, Genesys, JDS Uniphase, Motorola, Warner Home Video, and Whirlpool, all of which have signed up for enterprisewide deployments of EBS.Executive Editor at large Eric Knoor writes: “This SaaS (software as a service) application goes where no enterprise software has gone before: to control spending on non-PO (purchase order) services, all according to identity-based business rules. Moreover, Rearden has partnered with American Express and Hewlett-Packard, which will resell EBS worldwide.”Advisers include Jon Bosak, one of the creators of XML, and Adam Bosworth, vice president of engineering at Google and former chief architect of Microsoft.Net. “I think this is new,” Bosworth tells InfoWorld. “I’m a fan.” Rearden Commerce CEO Patrick Grady expects companies can see a 20 percent reduction of costs and more savings in process overhead. He has struck deals with AmEx and HP, both of which will resell EBS worldwide. The deal with HP goes a step further to support HP’s BPO (business process outsourcing) initiative, where HP shoulders nonstrategic business processes for its customers. “HP plans to extend the Rearden Commerce platform to create some uniquely focused BPO-based solutions,” says Bob Schultz, HP’s vice president of BPO.There is a coincidence working here. This new focus on outsourcing business processes is important because business processes in general have become an innovative area where Web services, composite applications, and platforms like SAP’s NetWeaver are all headed.As Editor at Large Ephraim Schwartz points out this week in his story “BPO battle heats up,” Microsoft is hard at work on BPO. Additionally, HP is implementing BPO in a multistep process. In step one, HP takes a company’s processes and the software that executes those processes, uses the same tools a customer has, and transitions that work to HP’s datacenters. Technology Industry