e-business
e-commerce
extranet
"e-business" ("electronic business," derived from such terms as "e-mail" and "e-commerce") is the conduct of business on the Internet, not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners. One of the first to use the term was IBM, when, in October, 1997, it launched a thematic campaign built around the term. Today, major corporations are rethinking their businesses in terms of the Internet and its new culture and capabilities. Companies are using the Web to buy parts and supplies from other companies, to collaborate on sales promotions. and to do joint research. Exploiting the convenience, availability, and world-wide reach of the Internet, many companies, such as Amazon.com, the book sellers, have already discovered how to use the Internet successfully.
Increasingly, much direct selling (or e-tailing) is taking place on the Internet of computer-related equipment and software. One of the first to report sales in the millions of dollars directly from the Web was Dell Computer. Travel bookings directly or indirectly as a result of Web research are becoming significant. Custom-orderable golf clubs and similar specialties are considered good prospects for the immediate future.
With the security built into today's browsers and with digital certificates now available for individuals and companies from Verisign, a certificate issuer, much of the early concern about the security of business transaction on the Web has abated and e-business by whatever name seems likely to accelerate.
IBM also considers the development of intranets and extranets to be part of e-business.
"E-commerce" (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. In practice, this term and a new term, "e-business," are often used interchangably. For online retail selling, the term e-tailing is sometimes used.
E-commerce can be divided into:
As the world continues to get access, the Web's advantages as a place for shopping and making purchases (including 24-hour availability, a global reach, the ability to interact and provide custom information and ordering, and its multimedia prospects) are expected to make it a multibillion dollar source of revenue for the world's businesses. A number of businesses already report considerable success. By the middle of 1997, Dell Computers reported orders of a million dollars a day. Cisco Systems network products said that it expected $1 billion dollars of revenue in 1997. Apart from computer and network products, books (Amazon.com), gardening products (Garden Escape), music on compact disks (CDNow), and office supplies (SuppliesOnline) were a few of the products reported to be selling well (not all companies were yet profitable).
However, smaller companies and businesses with apparently only a local clientele are not expected to profit from the Web for some time.
As of late 1997, companies were gathering data about prospects and customers through site registration, questionnaires, and as part of taking orders. The issue of whether data was being collected with the knowledge and permission of market subjects had been raised. (Microsoft referred to its policy of data collection as "profiling.")
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
EDI is the exchange of business data using an understood data format. It predates today's Internet. EDI involves data exchange among parties that know each other well and make arrangements for one-to-one (or point-to-point) connection, usually dial-up.
E-Mail, Fax, and Internet Telephony
E-commerce is also conducted through the more limited electronic forms of communication called e-mail, facsimile or fax, and the emerging use of telephone calls over the Internet. Most of this is business-to-business, with some companies attempting to use e-mail and fax for unsolicited ads (usually viewed as online junk mail or spam) to consumers and other business prospects. An increasing number of business Web sites offer e-mail newsletters for subscribers.
Business-to-Business Buying and Selling
Thousands of companies that sell products to other companies have discovered that the Web provides not only a 24-hour-a-day showcase for their products but a quick way to reach the right people in a company for more information.
The Security of Business Transactions
Security includes authenticating business transactors, controlling access to resources such as Web pages for registered or selected users, encrypting communications, and, in general, ensuring the privacy and effectiveness of transactions. Among the most widely-used security technologies are SSL and RSA. Secure Electronic Transactions (SET) is an emerging industry standard.
An extranet is a private network that uses the Internet protocols and the public telecommunication system to securely share part of a business's information or operations with suppliers, vendors, partners, customers, or other businesses. An extranet can be viewed as part of a company's intranet that is extended to users outside the company. It has also been described as a "state of mind" in which the Internet is perceived as a way to do business with other companies as well as to sell products to customers. The same benefits that HTML, HTTP, SMTP, and other Internet technologies have brought to the Internet and to corporate intranets now seem designed to accelerate business between businesses.
An extranet requires security and privacy. These require firewall server management, the issuance and use of digital certificates or similar means of user authentication, encryption of messages, and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network.
Companies can use an extranet to: