World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
IHT May 17, 1999 |
Electronic Commerce: Building an Industry is a joint initiative of the International Telecommunication Union and the International Herald Tribune. It was produced in its entirety by the Advertising Department of the International Herald Tribune. Part II of this series, "Electronic Commerce: Building a Market" will appear on Sept. 21.
Electronic Commerce: Building an Industry
Should Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telekom
succeed in creating the world's second-largest telephone company, it will be the
biggest deal in corporate history, serving 72 million fixed-line subscribers and
over 33 million mobile users in Europe and elsewhere. Its $170 million size
alone is a harbinger of the importance of the telecommunications industry in the
opening years of the new millennium.
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
Martin Burack, executive director of the
Internet Society, describes one session of his organization's upcoming world
congress as ''the techies versus the lawyers.'' The subject is the Internet: the
techies want it ''wide open,'' says Mr. Burack, but the lawyers want to know
''who pays the inevitable lawsuits.''
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
Every e-commerce transaction implies the
passage of information - about the seller's products and pricing and the buyer's
financial details (credit card or bank data) and shopping preferences. For
businesses, this data has both positive and negative aspects, says Chris
Christiansen, program director of Internet security service at International
Data Corporation (IDC). E-commerce, he observes, can be heaven because it can
''boost revenues and lower costs, hell because it opens up networks and servers
to external and, more significantly, internal attacks.''
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
A snail's-eye view of e-commerce can be
found in the small town of Cherasco (pop. 6,200) in rural Piedmont, Italy. A
visitor asks the mayor about his town's major industry, snail breeding. ''Would
you like to see the text of our Web pages?'' responds the mayor proudly. ''We
have them in Italian and English. We give information on snails and we invite
subscriptions to our magazine, 'Farming Snails.' You know, there are 12,000
snail growers worldwide, and now we can reach them all.''
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
One of the great concerns of statesmen and
scientists is that the evolving Information Society will reflect the same
inequities of the Industrial Society that preceded it, resulting in information
''haves'' and ''have nots.'' In this scenario, the former would enjoy the
fastest, latest, best information borne on a sophisticated infrastructure, with
content targeted to local needs and costs brought down by a competitive
marketplace.
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
The on-line experience of Ostergaard, a
Danish auto-parts manufacturer, illustrates how a company's business can be
transformed in unexpected ways through electronic commerce. Ostergaard's
customers are auto-repair shops, and the problem that brought them to e-commerce
was a simple one: Each morning, the switchboard would overload as shop mechanics
called in to place their orders for the day.
May 17, 1999 The Full Story
Of all new applications to emerge from the
nascent Information Age, electronic commerce has perhaps the greatest potential
to radically transform the economic relationships that will define our way of
life in the 21st century. Already, analysts are predicting that the value of
Web-based electronic commerce will climb to between $1 trillion and $3 trillion
in less than a decade.
May 17, 1999 The Full Story