Business-to-business e-marketplaces may be all the rage, but the bloom will soon blow off, according to a new report from Internet research firm Forrester Research, Inc.

The report, released today, indicates that online marketplaces for business-to-business transactions will thrive in the coming years, but their mystique will fade. And as that happens, business-to-business operations will face much more aggressive competition - in some cases from long-established brick-and-mortar giants. "The overarching conclusion is that marketplaces will switch from becoming isolated niche offerings to being very highly interconnected one-stop shops, which they are not today," said Varda Lief, a senior Forrester analyst in e-business trade. "As a result, there is going to be a huge shakeout in the Internet marketplace over the next 12 to 18 months." That_s partly because dot-com companies may not always, in every instance, be the driving force behind the e-commerce business-to-business markets, the Forrester report says. Lief said the coming shake-up has its roots in the very the purpose for having a business-to-business marketplace. She predicts that e-businesses that will take the lead in the coming months will be those that are capable of delivering real one-stop shopping.