E- commerce is referred to as a new business technique that takes care of the requirements of firms, consumers etc for cutting costs and enhancing the goods quality & the speed of services.
The requirement for e-commerce comes from the need inside the business to make good & efficient use of computing, which means to make use of omputer technology in such a way to enhance business processes and exchange of information both inside and across an enterprise
Electronic commerce applications are quite varied. In its most common form, it is also used to denote the exchange of business information using EDI ( Electronic Data Interchange), E-mail, EFT(electronic funds transfer) etc, and other similar technologies.
The business functions like payment and funds transfer, management of inventory, electronic catalogs etc act as initiators to the entire order management cycle that incorporates the more established notions of electronic commerce. In short, what we are witnessing is the use of the term electronic commerce as an umbrella concept to integrate a wide range of new and old applications.
ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK FOR ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
In general, a frame work is intended to define and create tools that integrate the information found in today’s closed systems and allow the development of e-commerce applications. The architecture should focus on synthesizing the diverse resources already in place in corporations to facilitate the integration of data and software for better applications. The electronic commerce application architecture consists of six layers of functionality, or functionality, or services: (1) applications; (2) brokerage services, data or transaction management: (3) interface and support layers; (4) secure messaging, security, and electronic document interchange; (5) middleware and structured document interchange ; and (6) network infrastructure and basic communications services.
1. Electronic Commerce Application Services
The application services layer of e-commerce will be comprised of existing and future applications built on the innate architecture. Three distinct classes of e- commerce applications can be there; customer-to-business, business-to-business, and intra-organization.
Consumer-to-business Transactions
The consumers can learn about products differently through electronic publishing , purchase them differently by making use of electronic cash and payment systems which are secured, and can have them delivered differently.
Business-to-business Transactions
Here, businesses, governments, and many companies depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast and economical way to commence business transactions. Small companies are also trying to see the benefits of making use of the same methods. Business-to-business transactions requires the use of EDI and electronic mail for purchasing goods and services, buying information and consulting services, submitting requests for proposals and receiving proposals.
Intra-organizational transactions
A company becomes market driven by spreading throughout information about its customers and competitors, by spreading strategic making so that all units of the firm can participate and by checking their commitment to customers continuously, by making improved customer satisfaction an objective. For maintaining the relationships that are critical to delivering superior customer value, management must pay close attention to service, both before and after sales.
2. Information Brokerage and Management
The information brokerage and management layer provides service integration through the notion of information brokerages, the development of which is necessitated by the increasing information resource fragmentation. We use notion of information brokerage to represent an intermediary who provides service integration between customers and information providers, given some constraint such as low-price, fast service or profit maximization for a client.
Information brokerage does more than just searching. It addresses the issue of adding value to the information that is retrieved. For instance, in foreign exchange trading, information is retrieved about the latest currency exchange rates in order to hedge currency holdings to minimize risk and maximize profit.
Another aspect of the brokerage function is the support for data management and traditional transaction services. Brokerages may provide tools to accomplish more sophisticated, time-delayed updates or future-compensating transactions. These tools include software agents, distributed query generator, the distributed transaction generator and the declarative resource constraint base-which describes a business’s rules and environment information.
Software agents are used to implement information brokerages. Agents are encapsulations of users instruction that perform all kinds of tasks in electronic marketplaces spread across networks. Information brokerages dispatch agents capable of information resource gathering, negotiating deals and performing transactions.
Although the notion of software agents sounds very seductive, it will take a while to solve the problems of inter-agent communication, interoperable agents and other headaches that come with distributed computing and networking.
3. Interface and Support Services
Interface and support services, will provide interfaces for applications such as interactive catalogs and supports directory services –functions required for information search and access. Interactive catalogs are the customized interface to consumer applications such as home shopping. An interactive catalog is an extension o the paper-based catalog and incorporates additional features such as sophisticated graphics and video to make the advertising more attractive.
Directories, on the other hand, operate behind the scenes and attempt to organize the enormous amount of information and transactions generated to facilitate electronic commerce. The primary difference between the two is that unlike interactive catalogs, which deal with people, directory support services interact directly with software applications.
4. Secure Messaging and Structured Document Interchange Services
The importance of the fourth layer, secured messaging, is clear. Broadly defined, messaging, is the software that sits between the network infrastructure and the clients or electronic commerce applications, masking the peculiarities of the environment. In general, messaging products are not applications that solve problems; they are more enablers of the applications that solve problems.
Messaging services offer solutions for communicating non-formatted (unstructured) data-letters, memos, reports-as well as formatted (structured) data such as purchase orders, shipping notices and invoices. It supports both synchronous (immediate) and asynchronous (delayed) message delivery and processing.
Messaging is well-suited for both client-server and peer-to-peer computing models.
The main disadvantages of messaging are the new types of applications it enables – which appear to be more complex, especially to traditional programmers-and the jungle of standards it involves. Also, security, privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication techniques are important issues that need to be resolved.
5. Middleware Services
Middleware is a relatively new concept that emerged only recently. With the growth of networks, client-server technology and all other forms of communicating between/among unlike platforms the problems of getting all the pieces to work together grew. In simple terms, middleware is the ultimate mediator between diverse software programme that enables them talk to one another.
Another reason for middleware is the computing shift from application centric to data centric. To achieve data-centric computing, middleware services focus on three elements, transparency, transaction security and management and distributed object management and services.
6. Transparency
Transparency implies users should be unaware that they are accessing multiple systems. Transparency is essential for dealing with higher-level issues than physical media and interconnection that the underlying network infrastructure is in charge of. The ideal picture is one of a “virtual” (“network; a collection of work-group, departmental, enterprises and inter enterprise LANs that appears to the end user or client application to be a seamless and easily accessed whole.
Transparency is achieved using middleware that facilitates a computing environment which is distributed. The goal is from the applications to send a request to the middleware layer, which then satisfies the request any way it can, using remote information.
WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW) AS THE ARCHITECTURE
Electronic commerce depends on the unspoken assumption that computers co-operate efficiently for seamless sharing of information. Unfortunately, this assumption of interoperability has not been supported by the realities of practical computing. Computing is still a world make up of many technical directions, product implementations and completing vendors.
The web community of developers and users is tackling these complex problems.
The Web architecture is made up of three primary entities ; client browser, web browser and third party services. The client browser usually interacts with the WWW server, which acts as an intermediary in the interaction with third-party services.
The client browser is rested on the user’s PC or workstation and provides an interface to the various type of content. The browser has to be smart enough to understand what file it is downloading and what browser connection it requires to activate to display the file. Browsers are also capable of manipulating local files.
Web server functions can be categorized into information retrieval, data and transaction management, and security. The third party services could be other web servers that make up the digital library, information processing tools and electronic payment systems.
There are some basic concepts regarding e-commerce. We have fitted this as consumer oriented because all that we are dealing is how to supply the items needed by the consumer at his doorsteps.
Basic Tenets of E-Commerce in a Consumer Oriented Scenario
It has been said that the convergence of money, commerce, computing and networks form the global consumer market place. Though it is true in most cases, the earliest (or rudimentary) systems had computers being replaced by other electronic devices like the television or even telephone. It is to be noted that there are several other, related areas that need to be address while setting up an e-commerce system. Though it is desirable that the entire system is automated, it may be possible that one/more of these activities may be transacted in a traditional manner. For example, while the order is placed over phone, further negotiations may be made with the sales representative calling on the buyer, the payment may be made through a cheque etc. to begin with, we include systems where in only a part of the operations are done through electronic means also as e-commerce systems.
Some of the fundamental issues that need to be addressed before consumer oriented e-commerce can be made broad based are listed below :
- Standard business practices and processes for buying and selling of products as well as services need to be established.
- Easy to use and well accepted software and hardware implementations of the various stages of e-commerce like order taking, payment, delivery, after sales interactions etc. need to be established.
- Secure commercial and transport practices that make the parties believe that they are not at the mercy of anybody else for the safety of their information and goods need to be in place.
It may be noted that each one of the above requirements can be established only over a period of time with several trial and error methods. Ironically, e-commerce can grow in a very big way only when these requirements are fully available and are within the grasp of the average user.
We next look at a few applications of e-commerce in some detail, to understand the implications of e-commerce in a full scale.
We look at the following concepts in some detail :
- Basic banking services
- Home shopping
- Home entertainment
- Micro transaction for information
Basic Banking Services
The concepts under basic banking services are what a normal customer would be transacting with his bank most of the time. They are mainly related to personal finances. It can be safely be presumed that most of normal transactions that a customer has with his bank can be classified into the following :
- Checking his account statements
- Round the clock banking (ATM)
- Payment of bills etc.
- Fund transfer and
- Updating of his pass books etc.
Indeed most of these can be done through telephone with suitable passwords etc. except round the clock banking. The concept of Automated Teller Machines is to allow the customer to draw money from his account at any part of the day (or night). In fact, ATMs are today thought to be one single concept that changes the way banks functioned. The customer need not go to the bank at all for his most important service. In other words, both the bank and the customer became faceless to each other. But it helped the customer by ensuring that he need not modify his working schedule to visit the bank. At the same time, the banks need not resort to concept like split hours, opening on holidays etc. to project themselves as customer friendly.
It can be noted that the individual ATMs are connected to a Bank Switching Centre. The Switching Centre’s of several banks are interconnected to an association switching centre ( May be all banks of a particular region, for example). All such centre are globally connected to a main switching centre. While the actual operations are not important to note that the PC are any such computers are not employed at the customer level. It is also argued that an average customer is more comfortable with the process of simple insertion of a card rather than complicated operations on PCs. However, we include the ATMs also under e-commerce.
Home Shopping
The next example is home shopping. For simplicity, we presume it is television based shopping. It may be noted that this concept is picking up now in India in a small way, wherein the channels set apart only a very small portion of their broadcasting time to teleshopping.
In the simplest case, the channels describe the various aspects of their product and the customer can order items over phone. The goods are delivered to his home and payment can be made in the normal modes.
In a more sophisticated version, orders can be placed online (through computers) and payment also can be made through credit/debit cards. It may be noted that several concepts of traditional marketing like negotiation, trial testing etc. are missing from this scheme and it is most suitable for those customers who are almost sure of what they need to buy who are too busy to go to the shops. Otherwise, there is hardly any concept of interaction and there is little scope to ensure the quality of product,after sales services etc.
Home Entertainment
The next example of this type of commerce is home entertainment. Dubbed online movies, it is possible for the user to select a movie/CD online and make his cable operator play the movie exclusively for him (movie on demand) cause against payment. Payment can be either online/billed to his account. It is also possible to play interactive games online/download them to your computer to play .the concept of downloading games/news etc, at a cost to the mobiles is also a similar concept. It may be noted that in all these cases, the physical movement of the customer /trader is avoided, of course, the computer need not always be a part of the deal.
Micro Transactions for Information
The telephone directories provide a basic type of micro transaction. If you want by one particular of item- say – books – they list the addresses and phone numbers of the various book dealers whom you may contact. Similar facilities are available on the internet- may be for number of items and also with more details. IT may include detailed catalogues, other related information etc. of course, the customer has to pay a small charge for visiting the site- each time he visits the site. This can be thought of as an extension of the earlier described television based ordering. You don’t have to order only those items that are shown in the computer, but search for an item that you need. Also ordering is on line. Some preliminary two way interaction are also possible.
Several modifications and value addition to the above mentioned preliminary scheme are possible. Ofcourse, each value addition also adds cost.
1. Desirable characteristics of E-marketing
Common sense tells us that few transactions are more congenial for e-marketing than others. We list out the desirable features of a hypothetical market pace – let us call it e-market.
2. A minimal size of the phase
Obviously for any such place to thrive is a critical size, below which it is not profitable to operate. This minimal number of buyers and sellers characterizes the profitability of the place.
3. A scope for interactions
Interactions include trial runs of the products, classifications of doubts on the part of the customers, details of after sales services, ability to compare different products and of course scope for negotiations and bargaining. Negotiations can be on account of cost, value additions, terms and conditions, delivery dates etc.
4. Scope for designing new products
The customer need not only buy only what is available. He can ask for modifications, upgradations etc. The supplier must be able to accept these and produce made to order items.
5. A seamless connection to the marketplace
It is obvious that each customer will be operating with a different type of computer, software, connectivity etc. There should be available standards so that any of these customers will be able to attach himself to any of the markets without changing his hardware/software/ interfaces etc.
6. Recourse for disgruntled users
It is native to believe that transaction of such a place to end up in complete satisfaction to all parties concerned. Especially because of the facelessness of the customer and the supplier, there should be a standard recourse to settle such disputes.
Earth is one world we know the best because there is physical existence here. Earth is the only place for mutation. In other worlds a spirit does not change. Everything is static there. But on Earth change is the only truth. Earth is also thus a place for Evolution with the ultimate goal of complete descent of Divinity like Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. But Earth is limited and we know almost everything about it well almost everything. In future say 2000 years hence we will need other planets as colonies so that we can stay there and thus increase the area for the mutation and evolution.
Chandrayan is an attempt by India, the first step towards colonization of celestial bodies. Also humankind is feeling lonely and thus there is a thirst in us to seek any intelligent being from outer space. There is a curious corollary to the principle of reflection. It suggests that virtually anything that is conceivable using the faculty of imagination is realizable in matter. This is a very strong statement and has significant implications for science and technology. It may be considered outlandish to suggest that technological accomplishment can reach such levels where it extends into what is conventionally considered the domain of the 'spirit'.
But then, one should wonder at the various functions of the brain, and how the body-soul connection (which is an abstraction) actually takes place. Technology is good for human .Robots save humans from working on hazardous situations like in nuclear plant; mines etc.Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) used in scanning (body) is very useful.Most of the time adv outperformance the disadvantage to its extreme best. Technology is very useful Like Aircrafts, mobile,land,wireless,satellite phones, internet, computer,ships,Space explorers, cars, excavators, and other vehicles,medicine,scanners, Xray, and other hospital appliances etc.
The purpose of Science is to understand the nature not to gain control over the nature. Science has never tried to compete the nature and please for God sake doesn’t call science as a BIG business. It is one of the noble professions existing in the society. Most of the scientists always think to contribute to the society and to the mankind. Alfred Nobel has invented dynamite to break big stones not to blow up someone. Everybody knows how in Manhattan project scientists are forced to develop atom bomb. It is the person who misuses it. It’s not technology who is causing differences among people. Differences had always been there and people have always ego with them. Of course science has provided the opportunity to survive alone but it has not developed any new character of human being.
It is a 21st century where IT has reached at a peak point. Everyone wants to b its part.US UK countries have got so much success in this sector. Now India is also leading like anything. Many of NGO running at rural area and given all the knowledge and it is also succeed in many of parts.
Technology Vs Tradition
Tradition is standard where as technology is volatile that means changes its form often. So tradition always stands there irrespective of d technology. People with different mind sets wanted to think in different ways that is the way technology came into existence.
People can’t compete with the machines. But why one need to work hard if there are easy ways to do the same thing. Moreover these machines r designed by looking at the people’s hand work (standard) only and there are people still who do things on their own.
Technology more harm or good?
Technology is good when its shared and open to the humankind. But it is bad when it is secret and proprietary just to help a few people to exploiting the others.
A modern way of slavery:
Technology is both harmful and good. After all, Good and bad are two sides of the same coin. It just depends which side weigh's more. It can be boon for all when something new is discovered. Let’s say, the internet as long as people are using it for outsourcing/working/networking/trading/education/ entertainment etc. good and really exciting. But on the flip side, the cyber crimes, hacking etc are also at work. So it depends which side we are looking at. As goes the saying “Prevention is better than cure," so when something new is discovered a safety backup is required as well, no matter how long it takes.
But "Obviously technology is good." I don't completely agree with that. Not that I say technology is bad anyway, but what we call "technology" is an inevitable part of our life. When we were monkeys, we had our own technology. It evolves as we do, as do the rest of the universe. The so-called technology is just there, and it'll change continuously. If you remove technology from your life, you simply won't exist. But heck, simply put,
"Would you rather eat raw meat at the bottom of a dark cave?
Technology is a by-product of this existence. e.g. a software development began with very low level technology and has come to a very sophisticated state and it may evolve further similarly when human existence began it searched for simplest of inventions and later on generations developed over the earlier inventions. (Thus, in a way, copyright neither is nor appropriate because whatever you invent or discover is on a basis of inventions or discoveries made earlier). Harm or good is irrelevant because it is part of you. But happiness does not depend on it. You have your moments of happiness, sorrow or stress and caveman had his moments of the same though the source may be different. Similarly a person of future will not be happier just because he/she will be living in more advanced world than us. As long as death is inevitable, the anxiety, the fear remains.
Some people here have mentioned that living in jungle cannot be thought of or is considered inhuman but that is because we are so used to our way of life. It is the attachment to this way of life otherwise living in jungle would not deprive you of your pleasures and once you get used to it then you will create your world their also.
I think technology might have originated from man's laziness. He didn't want to use his muscle power like other animals to earn a living. So he used his intelligence to invent enhancements. Eventually he found that the enhancements did not really reduce his work, it only created a new set of problems which increased his workload. So he invented another technology to solve those problems. But again that new technology gave rise to a new set of problems and he invented another technology to solve those. The process is going on and on; we call it progress.’
With all above that has been said I think one essential point that seems to have got missed is the fact that no one has referred to the political dimension of Technology. Everybody seems to talk like constructivists indicating Technology to look "neutral" which is not so. In fact as philosophers on technology one need to ask what Heidegger once addressed in his essay that "what is the Question concerning technology that we need to know". I would rather like to pose what Langdon Winner said "Technology itself is a political artifact".
Technology Versus Humanity:
"Our technology has surpassed our humanity."
The above famous quote by Einstein implies that even with all the technological advancements humanity as a whole has not entirely benefited. Science is responsible for all the technological innovations.well on one hand i feel that as technology eases our work and saves our time we should be left with more time for people around us..but on other hand it’s like since we have technology for everything, we don’t now need people and everybody is busy in/has created their own world.
I think the real driving force overall behind Science is Greed & Power. Looking at the big picture technology overall does not value human life or nature anymore and is very destructive. The majority of the inventions are based on a Faulty, Reductionism, and machine-like type of science that likes to control nature and is very much misguided due to the BIG "I" which is Industry. The majority of the greatest Scientists are all working for BIG Business which is all about Profit. This is why in my opinion technology has surpassed our humanity and has somewhat resulted in the ecological world problems. I am not implying that all Science is bad, I know that Science is vital for humanity to evolve, however it's like a system out of control and we appear to be devolving instead of evolving.
Those who benefit from technology, feel that technology is an end, is what I feel the originator of the thread means. I feel, technology may find the cure to cancer, but the factory system has made the human being a machine in the factory. We cure machines, when we cure human beings. How can humans evolve the machine, to help humanity? Machines cannot take the place of human beings, like it is being seen in the United States Armed forces. If non human beings, like robots fight wars, then that raises ethical questions. Why should robots be trained to take the lives of human beings, so that the lives of the human beings are not jeopardized who are on the side of those who build robots? To tell the truth, the ethical pondering of human beings are of no consequence in the life of the universe. Human beings will be the most insignificant part of the universe, because they feel that they are so significant. How do we think so much about ourselves, when we contemplate the universe?
Technology in Marketing
If you are a smart businessmen or a marketer. You would only look at the technology from the viewer perspective! To put things into perspective, the number of audience hooked onto the technology becomes more important than the technology. There have been several new forms of technology but the only ones that remain are the ones that the customer can use! This is called commercial value. Hence, in the challenge to overcome this hurdle marketer’s use what you call spam instead of creativity.
Sometimes, even spam can be creative enough to lure you!
Precision Marketing:
Thanks to Google, we have ads up in almost every online property owned by almost any search engine and its parent. Search Engine Marketing is minting money for whoever is willing to convince someone to agree to hire them for it. From seminars to outlook to diamonds to job placements, you name it and they are advertising through SEM and Search Engine Optimization (you wouldn't even know when it’s a marketing effort). And soon "relevant marketing" will begin doing the rounds, i.e. ads replicating classifieds. The crux of this technology taking over and having buzz is precisely based on how little time we spend on it! The effort to make an audience look at your message, comprehend it and act on it is the fastest on these media. Therefore new technology has a customer spending the least amount of time on your ad but I can customize my reach to my exact audience with the right message. This has been a bane in the marketing world for centuries of mass marketing! but then again, that's a very idealistic way to look at it. True, you may get a lot of volume, but the quality of the leads you get through this method suffers greatly. Most of the strongest online brands are the ones that were advertised least in the online space. Today, online marketing tends to overlook brand building gravely. Since online media gives instant gratification to the marketer, on the surface of it things look quite pretty. But online media has still not achieved what offline has. Firstly, one is overlooking a great mass which does NOT have access to the online media. Which makes the whole thing very myopic to begin with- because online media markets generic stuff, not only niche segments? So there is a long way to go to reach an amalgamation of the best possible combinations. SEM based marketing doesn't keep in mind the fact that people search online for information and not a hypermarket. Viral marketing tends to overlook that they are adopting the same "interrupting route" that they think they are moving away from. People have still not been able to stop appreciating the touch and feel of black and white. Plus the romance of it all has been kindly eliminated.
Leads generation is the best on online media. Offline media do not generate leads. Leads can be tracked to the end recipient! This makes the lead genuine and can be cross checked. Online Marketing Activity is very rarely used for brand building! Brand Building is yet strong offline focused dominance. When I speak of online media. I would include new technology such as SMS on Cell phones; the population may not be plugged in but is definitely keyed into new technology
Media neglecting segments is an ignorance of the power of new media. We can segment better online than offline because we know exactly what words the consumer is searching for, we also know the profile of the consumer and can detect location as well. All your P's and any other abbreviations are in place! I would like to re-iterate that this is a better lead generation tool than a Brand Building tool.Print is not a competition but a compliment to new technology. It will never go away! Just as you might have heard about companies doing well because of a good product mix. Similarly a Marketing mix would be a best strike approach.
Is technology killing ethics or not?
As I think technology is for the confirm life for the human beings. the use of technology is depend on the people who is using it. Everything is good in positive way and bad in negative way. As my one of friend told that the technology is killing the ethic. And he gave the examples of orkut,cellphone , internet, neuclear technology, network , media..
1)Orkut is a website which connect to the people, through a channel. You can share your thought with the others. This is a channel from where you can search a friend who was with you 10 years before. He will very happy when he will receive a friend request form you. and this small will be very precious for you. so the technology of orkut is not killing the ethic. As you told that some bed communities on this channel that depends on the mentality of people who created to that. This is not by those people who are managing orkut.
2) Internet is like a sea where knowledge is unlimited like water. You can get everything from use of internet. It solved many problems. So the use of internet is not bad.
3) cell phone is a technology which connect to you to talk with your parents, your girlfriend, and many friends, and those who are near you .if there was no phone there was no night tariff then how becomes possible to talk with a sweet voice for a whole a night. So the use of cell phone is depend on the people who using it.
4) We are leaving in that country where water is in limited amount. Nuclear energy is use to create light, and other treatments. The use of nuclear technology is depend on the people who is using it..
Technology is just like a knife which when given to a doctor saves life at the same time when it is in the hands of murderer it can destruct life. So it is really up to us whether to act like a doctor or a murder and we can never put the blame on tech which is only a tool .some technology which we are widely using nowadays no one can deny the immense uses it gives to us but on the other hand we have people who are misusing it .so it is up to the individual to kill ethics using it or not.
Commerce is normally associated with the buying and selling of items. Traditionally, commerce is one of the oldest activities of human beings and the concept of traders selling and buying items is a part of history. Normally the activity of commerce/trade is supposed that the buyer and the seller as well as the items of trade are available at one place. This brings us to the concept of markets which is a common place where the buyers and sellers meet along with their products. Money is also an essential part of the market place. Though commerce started and to some extent continues even today with the barter system, where both the seller and the buyer exchange their respective items, to make the entire activity flexible, the concept of money is an essential component. Originally money, in a mutually acceptable form is also a part of market place with the advent of time, the concept also changed the term commerce extended to beyond the concept of items and today includes buying and selling of products, information as well as information and knowledge. The concept of single merchants and traders has extended to the concept of organizations, business houses, service providers and several levels of consumers. Though the scope of commerce has broadened, it is still possible to apply the basic concepts of commerce’s and trading to the transactions of these days. Further, to take care of the concept of money, we have several concepts of banking, various methods of representing and transferring money like cheques, MOUs, Drafts etc. as also the concept of different currencies, their equalities, trade restrictions, concept of taxes etc. however, over the years there is a continued effort to improve the efficiency of trading, cut costs, sped up the operations and also to make the entire operation trouble free.
The advent of computers brought in another dimension to the situation, originally computers were used mainly for calculations and scientific applications. At that time, they were mainly calculators to speed up as well as make error free calculations. Subsequently, when the cost of the memories started going down drastically, computers were being used to store information in terms of files. An easier and faster calculation was avoided. This resulted not only in faster calculation, but also made it error free. Further, with floppy disks and magnetic tapes being available, it was possible to transfer the data and files from one computer to another- say from one office of the company to the other office or from the sellers computers to the buyers computer etc.
The growth of computer networks, however, changed the entire scenario to a different magnitude all together, with the concept of connecting computers by transmission of media, the need for physical data transfer through floppy disks etc. was avoided. Thus, people sitting in different cities and even countries, could transmit and share data. This meant that the entire information about buying, selling, costs, taxes and all such associated details are available and also can be transmitted across to the various persons involved at almost zero costs. This revolutionized the scenario of trading and commerce and can be called the beginning of e-commerce.
The matters improved further, with the concept of the world wide web and the internet, the number of web users increased manifold and the cost of getting connected crashed. This, coupled with several changes in banking and other systems, made the entire set of e-commerce operations available even to the individual and small time users, apart from the large companies and organizations.
Definitely, the key element of e-commerce is information processing. Given a suitable scenario and infrastructure, every stage of commerce, except of course production of goods and their physical delivery can be automated. The tasks that can be automated include information gathering, processing manipulation and information distribution. Broadly speaking the following categories came under e-commerce :
- Transactions between supplier/a shopkeeper and a buyer or between two companies over a public network like the service provider network (like ISP). With suitable encryption of data and security for transaction, entire operation of selling/buying and settlement of accounts can be automated.
- Transactions with the trading partners or between the officers of the company located at different locations.
- Information gathering needed for market research.
- Information processing for decision making at different levels of management.
- Information manipulation for operations and supply chain management.
- Maintenance of records needed for legal purposes, including taxation, legal suits etc.
- Transactions for information distributions to different retailers, customers etc. including advertising, sales and marketing.
You can also note that, these transactions, apart from being important in themselves also affect other transactions. For example, data gathering affects information management, advertising affects market research etc. the use of computers in these areas not only make the operations quicker, but also error free and provides for consolidated approach towards the problem.
It is not that the concept of e-commerce I totally without side effects. The very nature of the concept that is revolutionary makes it difficult for the users to understand fully the various issues involved. There are several areas of security, safety against fraud etc., the concept of legal acceptance that are yet to be solved. Also since the internet knows no national boundaries, the concepts become more complex, since what is legal in one country may not be so in another. There is also the concepts of taxation and state controls that needs to be solved.
In spite of all this, the growth of e-commerce and web-commerce has been phenomenal in all countries across the globe and is likely to only increase in coming years.
Whether in a hotel in the sleepy provincial town or at a major airport, WLAN is off today here to stay. The wireless technology for the Internet enjoys great popularity. It has, however, one crucial drawback: The range is fairly limited. From a certain distance to the access point disconnects are common. Moreover, the router radio in the 2.4 GHz range, which for all free and without registration is available. Microwaves work in the same area and often are wireless networks by closing poorly disrupted or bypassed completely microwaves.
The manufacturer of the wireless router also optimistic thinking, the specified ranges can be achieved only in the open field. But who is on his routers outdoors? This works most, in areas where the weather is always good, water is none of the models on the market. In normal environments can range 20-30 meters will be achieved, provided that do not affect too many walls or other obstacles to the reception.
If the range of a wireless network will be increased, still applies: The antenna is the best high-frequency amplifier and therefore there should be recognized. The better the antenna, the better the transmission power. A good wireless antenna has good efficiency, which means they must convert as much of the energy fed into radiation. The smaller the antenna, the lower the transmission power and the higher the loss. The antenna should be at least as long as half the wavelength of the radiation. A wave is in the 2.4 GHz range, nearly 12cm long and therefore the antenna should be minimal 6cm long. Almost as important is the location would be ideal line of sight to the receiver. Unfortunately, in most home and corporate networks is simply not possible.
The recipient is the second weakness, in many networks spark PCI cards that can only work through the design is not optimal. The antenna is located behind the computer, usually hidden in a desk and radiates the first place on the wall. USB receiver are the first choice, they can with little effort optimally position and cause no cable mess.
Should or can send and receive benefits that are not reinforced, the range can also increase with additional hardware. These devices are called miracles wireless repeater (repeater). They are the actual access point connect and build on a quasi-second radio network, which is only half the data rate can work with, however, because the repeater connected computers and communicates with the Access Point. Most modern routers and access points can also be operated as a repeater. Requirement is to support WDS (Wireless Distribution System), a standard that WLAN protocol is incorporated in the base. The repeater function only in certain environments, and when different manufacturers are used together, problems arise because the devices rarely work really compatible with each other. The best solution is theoretically the use of a router as Access Point and another of the same make as a repeater. Whether it is possible to look into the manual reveals the devices and often offer the manufacturer of the router also extensive instructions for such constructions. Not all repeaters models support one way encryption and close attention should be paid, for nothing is more dangerous than an open, unencrypted Wi-Fi wireless network.
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