The initial trial of the Automotive Network Exchange (ANX) will involve Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Corp., General Motors Corp., Caterpillar, Inc., Deere & Co., TRW, Inc. and other business partners. ANX organizers hope to go into production with the network in November, linking hundreds of automotive manufacturing companies, suppliers and other business partners. The group plans to continue rolling out the network through next year. By 1999, the network should reach its full global stretch, said Richard Simmons, associate director of the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), an auto industry consortium in Southfield, Mich.

The network will be used for electronic data interchange, computer-aided design and manufacturing information and database applications. It is one of several business-to-business, Internet-based networks -- or extranets -- being developed to connect players within vertical industries.

The banking industry's Integrion Financial Network has its first two banks online, with six more expected by next March. The network was designed to provide home-banking services from 16 member banks. WINconnect, a network that links four of the world's largest commercial insurers, went live last week, said Dennis Mahoney, chairman of the World Insurance Network.

WINconnect's Internet-based electronic-mail connections use Concert, a joint venture that will result from the acquisition of MCI Communications Corp. by British Telecommunications PLC, as a carrier.

Vertical industry extranets help companies solve their connectivity problems all at once, rather than having each company build a system to communicate with a common set of suppliers, customers and other business partners. Companies now often use hard-copy transfers, expensive one-to-one connections over leased lines, or proprietary data networks to share information.

"This sort of thing doesn't differentiate you, unless you do it poorly," said Bruce Luecke, general manager of interactive delivery services at the Bank One unit of Banc One Corp. in Columbus, Ohio. The company uses the Integrion service to provide home banking for its customers.

"Why do we need to reinvent the wheel and do something on our own if we can leverage the advantage of doing something with other companies that face the same problems? It's like using the telephone company to move transactions; we don't want to have to build our own telephone network," Luecke said.

The networks are run by separate associations set up by multiple companies in an industry. The auto industry's ANX is run by the AIAG. The Integrion and WINconnect networks are run by organizations that were set up solely to start up and establish those extranet projects.

The Integrion network uses IBM's Internet service provider, the IBM Global Network and data centers in Schaumburg, Ill., and Columbus to connect bank systems with customers.