Under the deal, announced Monday at SAP's international customer conference held in Orlando, Fla., companies will be able to use their existing SAP software systems to sell their idle assets on eBay.

SAP and eBay will work closely to make the system generally available in the first quarter of 2004. The two companies are currently testing the technology with W.W. Grainger Inc., ...

Customers of the German software giant can sell their used inventory on the auction site--an increasingly popular tactic among companies emptying their shelves during the downturn.

The new joint solution will consist of software and services and will use eBay's application programming interfaces to connect to eBay's online SAP R/3 and mySAP CRM to the eBay marketplace. It will ...