... a full service commerce hub operated as an Application Service Provider 
(ASP) for a select list of government, commercial, Internet portals, and
E-commerce customers.    http://www.FASTXCHANGE.Com/
<br>
["FASTXchange, we're proud of our track record of helping firms make
dramatic improvements to their procurement operations. That record
includes an established ability to cut the costs of goods and services
by up to 10%, reduce procurement costs by as much as 60%, and improve
fulfillment cycles by more than 70%."]

<br>

show how the investment of $500K now will be returned to the investors
in two years, with the long range promise of more. 
This return may be achieved through 
1. secondary refinancing 
2. IPO 
3. creation of a business with positive cash flow and the promise of
growth. 
<br>
<br>

Then spell out how you will spend the money. Whom will you hire and what
will they produce by when? Are you in the business to develop and sell
more software, or are you developing proprietary software in order to
provide a service to the business community? 
<br>
<br>

If you are looking to build a business-to-business service, consider
purchasing. A business wants to buy X, but where does it go for X. It
also wants to know about price, quantities, conditions, guarantees, etc.
<br>
<br>


One possibility for filling this gap is to consider the Yahoo! and the
Yellow Pages models. I can ask Yahoo! to search its database for a
keyword or author, and it will give me a list of publications. I can ask
the Yellow Pages for a list of businesses of the same type in a town,
(plumbers in Santa Monica) and it gives me their names, addresses, phone
numbers, web pages and a map. It will also give me plumbers outside of
Santa Monica ranked by distance from the center of town. 
<br>
<br>

But neither Yahoo! nor Yellow Pages will give me product data, catalog,
discounts  or ordering information. If I want to buy electric motors, I
want to see a list of specifications from each supplier. If I want to
buy sweaters, I want to see the catalog from Land's End, and its
competitors, etc. If I want to refinance my house, I want to see rates
and terms of lenders. 
<br>
<br>

.. probably have to interface with Oracle or
some other data base. How will you get a cooperating business to comply
with your standard interface and to maintain it or update it with the
latest product information? 

<hr>
http://www.overture.com/ 
<br>
"Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed
to provide fast access to the graphics framebuffer and audio device. It
is used by MPEG playback software, emulators, and many popular
games ..."
<br>

http://www.libsdl.org/