EnronOnline
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EnronOnline was considered by many to be the first very successful e-commerce website. It allowed users primarily in the commodity market to buy, sell, and trade commodities and finance instruments.
The construction of EnronOnline was begun in 1999 by Louise Kitchen and John Sherriff. The site went live on November 29, 1999. The site allowed energy users to do business in a previously unseen way. Until this point a trader who wanted to buy an energy contract talked with another energy trader who wanted to sell a contract, and from there terms were agreed. EnronOnline allowed market participants to see prices on their screen just like a stock ticker, and could do business much more simply.
The main commodities offered on EnronOnline were natural gas and electricity, although there were 500 other products including credit derivatives, bankruptcy swaps, pulp, gas, plastics, paper, steel, metals, freight, and TV commercial time.
EnronOnline was seen as an impressive tool, but because Enron was either buying, selling, or trading in every transaction, the costs increased as time went on. It spawned several other Enron e-commerce websites including www.DealBench.com. DealBench is an acquisition and divestiture tool still operating today. As of this writing, Enron still operates the DealBench code under the name EnronAssets. Other Enron developed technologies include Commodity Logic, ClickPaper and EnronCredit.
EnronOnline closed down for online trading on the morning of November 28, 2001, with Enron filing for bankruptcy four days later. Its registration, now administered by one Francis Ditta, expires on April 27, 2010.
Louise Kitchen now works for Deutsche Bank in New York.
