E-Commerce Stock Watch: Sterling Stock Fizzles

Sterling Commerce (NYSE: SE), which provides e-commerce software and services to businesses, announced a new three-year deal to provide services to Onsale (Nasdaq: ONSL) on Friday, but that wasn't nearly enough to keep Sterling stock from getting hammered.

Shares of Sterling were down more than 12 percent on Friday, closing down 3-5/8 to 26-7/16, largely on fears that Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) e-commerce initiatives spell trouble for smaller companies like Sterling that cater to businesses.

Sterling is a Fortune 500 company and had 1998 revenues of more than $490 million (US$), but when the world's top software company threatens your business, it's certainly time to be concerned.