INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

By -

INTRODUCTION

Unlike applications based on electronic data interchange (EDI) and other previous uses of computer networks, the Internet has brought integration and versatility to existing computer and network tech- nologies to the extent that firms and consumers are said to be in a virtual economic arena. A variety of commercial and economic activities fall within the realm of electronic commerce as long as they are carried out in the electronic marketplace. In this chapter, we present an overview of business and industrial applications of the Internet technologies.

Specific advantages of the Internet over previous closed, proprietary networks are numerous. First, the investment cost necessary to establish an Internet presence is relatively small compared to earlier private value-added networks, which limited EDI applications to large corporations. Lower costs in turn allow small firms and individuals to be connected to the global network. Open TCP / IP protocols of the Internet also ensure that communicating parties can exchange messages and products across different computing platforms and geographic regional boundaries.

In physical markets, geographical distance and political boundaries hinder the free movement of goods and people. Similarly, closed proprietary networks separate virtual markets artificially by es- tablishing barriers to interoperability. This is equivalent to having a railway system with different track widths so that several sets of identical rail cars must be maintained and passengers must be transferred at all exchange points.

Neither computing nor networking is new to businesses and engineers. Large-scale private net- works have been an essential ingredient in electronic data interchange, online banking, and automatic teller machines. Business investments in information technology over the past decades have enabled firms to reengineer manufacturing, inventorying, and accounting processes. Nevertheless, the strength of the Internet lies in its nature as an open network. Economically speaking, the open Internet allows easy entry and exit into a market because of lower costs and greater market reach. A store located on a small tropical island can effectively reach global partners and consumers, collaborating and competing with multinational corporations without investing in international branches and sales pres- ence.

While computers and networking technologies have advanced steadily over the past decades, they have lacked the characteristics of a true infrastructure. An infrastructure needs to be open and inter- operable so as to allow various private enterprises with differing products and goals to collaborate and transact business in a seamless environment. As an infrastructure, the Internet provides open connectivity and uniformity as the first technological medium of its kind that supports a persistent development of universal applications and practices.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MATERIAL-HANDLING SYSTEMS:STORAGE SYSTEMS

By -
Image
STORAGE SYSTEMS Various types of racks have been developed to store loads of different sizes and shapes. One of the simplest storage systems is block stacking, where loads (which may or may not be palletized) are simply stacked on top each other with no separate support structure. While block stacking is inex pensive and provides dense storage (i.e., little or no space is lost due to air between the loads), its use is limited in practice because only certain types of loads (such as appliances or furniture packed properly in cartons) can be stacked without crushing / damaging the loads at the bottom and access to individual loads (i.e., load selectivity) is very limited. In fact, loads must be removed from a stack, starting with the load at the top. This leads to last-in-first-out (LIFO) stock rotation, which is not desirable for many storage systems. A fundamental trade-off that exists in storage systems design is that between storage density (how well the cubic volume is utilized) ...
Read more

NETWORK OPTIMIZATION MODELS:THE MINIMUM SPANNING TREE PROBLEM

By -
Image
THE MINIMUM SPANNING TREE PROBLEM The minimum spanning tree problem bears some similarities to the main version of the shortest-path problem presented in the preceding section. In both cases, an undi r ecte d and connected network is being considered, where the given information includes some mea- sure of the positive length (distance, cost, time, etc.) associated with each link. Both problems also involve choosing a set of links that have the shortest total length among all sets of links that satisfy a certain property. For the shortest-path problem, this property is that the chosen links must provide a path between the origin and the destination. For the minimum spanning tree problem, the required property is that the chosen links must provide a path between ea c h pair of nodes. The minimum spanning tree problem can be summarized as follows: 1. You are given the nodes of a network but not the links. Instead, you are given the po- tential links and the positive length for each ...
Read more

DUALITY THEORY:THE ESSENCE OF DUALITY THEORY

By -
Image
THE ESSENCE OF DUALITY THEORY Given our standard form for the primal problem at the left (perhaps after conversion from another form), its dual problem has the form shown to the right. Thus, with the primal problem in maximizatio n form, the dual problem is in minimization form instead. Furthermore, the dual problem uses exactly the same pa r amete r s as the primal problem, but in different locations, as summarized below. 1. The coefficients in the objective function of the primal problem are the right-hand sides of the functional constraints in the dual problem. 2. The right-hand sides of the functional constraints in the primal problem are the coef- ficients in the objective function of the dual problem. 3. The coefficients of a variable in the functional constraints of the primal problem are the coefficients in a functional constraint of the dual problem. To highlight the comparison, now look at these same two problems in matrix notation (as introduced at the beginn...
Read more