SUNNYVALE, Calif., -- Ariba, Inc., the leading Enterprise Spend Management (ESM) solutions provider, announced that the online help system for Ariba(R) Buyer(TM), the key component of the Ariba Procurement Solution, will receive an Award of Excellence in the 2002 Northern California Technical Communication Competition at this evening's award ceremony. The system was honored by the judges for its thorough and well-implemented navigation and interface design. The competition is sponsored by the six Northern California chapters of the Society of Technical Communication (STC), which recognizes outstanding work in the technical communication profession. The competition -- dubbed the Touchstone Awards -- concludes with a series of award ceremonies at chapter meetings taking place throughout Northern California. The Ariba team will receive their award tonight at the award ceremony in Sunnyvale, California. The Ariba Buyer online help system was recognized in the Online Communication category for "outstanding communication that depends on an electronic medium for delivery." Forms of online communication included computer-based training, online documentation, help systems, online demonstration programs, simple text-revival systems, multimedia information systems, and Web pages. The judges determined the awards based on product content, design and structure. "Our customer's needs are always our focus when developing Ariba Spend Management solutions," said Tayloe Stansbury, EVP Engineering, Ariba. "I'm very proud that our team has received this industry recognition for their great work."