Database & Database Management Systems

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality (for example, the availability of rooms in hotels), in a way that supports processes requiring this information (for example, finding a hotel with vacancies). The term "database" refers both to the way its users view it, and to the logical and physical materialization of its data, content, in files, computer memory, and computer data storage. This definition is very general, and is independent of the technology used. However, not every collection of data is a database; the term database implies that the data is managed to some level of quality (measured in terms of accuracy, availability, usability, and resilience) and this in turn often implies the use of a general-purpose Database management system (DBMS). A general-purpose DBMS is typically a complex software system that meets many usage requirements, and the databases that it maintains are often large and complex.

The term database is correctly applied to the data and data structures themself, and is different from the DBMS which is a software system that allows to store and change the database (i.e., the data), as well as retrieve information from it. The structure of a database is generally too complex to be handled without its DBMS, and any attempt to do otherwise is very likely to result in database corruption. DBMSs are packaged as computer software products: well-known products include the Oracle DBMS, Access and SQL Server from Microsoft, DB2 from IBM and the Open source DBMS MySQL. Each such DBMS product currently supports many thousands of databases all over the world. The stored data in a database is not generally portable across different DBMS, but can inter-operate to some degree (while each DBMS type controls a database of its own database type) using standards like SQL and ODBC. A successful general-purpose DBMS is designed in such a way that it can satisfy as many different possible applications and application designers as possible. A DBMS also needs to provide effective run-time execution to properly support (e.g., in terms of performance, availability, and security) as many end-users (the database's application users) as needed. Sometimes the combination of a database and its respective DBMS is referred to as a Database system (DBS).

Analytical database

Analysts may do their work directly against a data warehouse or create a separate analytic database for Online Analytical Processing (OLAP). For example, a company might extract sales records for analyzing the effectiveness of advertising and other sales promotions at an aggregate level.

Data warehouse

Data warehouses archive modern data from operational databases and often from external sources such as market research firms. Often operational data undergoes transformation on its way into the warehouse, getting summarized, anonymized, reclassified, etc. The warehouse becomes the central source of data for use by managers and other end-users who may not have access to operational data. For example, sales data might be aggregated to weekly totals and converted from internal product codes to use UPCs so that it can be compared with ACNielsen data. Some basic and essential components of data warehousing include retrieving and analyzing data, transforming,loading and managing data so as to make it available for further use.
Operations in a data warehouse are typically concerned with bulk data manipulation, and as such, it is unusual and inefficient to target individual rows for update, insert or delete. Bulk native loaders for input data and bulk SQL passes for aggregation are the norm.

Distributed database

These are databases of local work-groups and departments at regional offices, branch offices, manufacturing plants and other work sites. These databases can include segments of both common operational and common user databases, as well as data generated and used only at a user’s own site.

End-user database

These databases consist of data developed by individual end-users. Examples of these are collections of documents in spreadsheets, word processing and downloaded files.

External database

These databases contain data collected for use across multiple organizations, either freely or via subscription. The Internet Movie Database is one example.

Hypermedia databases

The World Wide Web can be thought of as a database, albeit one spread across millions of independent computing systems. Web browsers "process" this data one page at a time, while Web crawlers and other software provide the equivalent of database indexes to support search and other activities.

Operational database

These databases store detailed data about the operations of an organization. They are typically organized by subject matter, process relatively high volumes of updates using transactions. Essentially every major organization on earth uses such databases. Examples include customer databases that record contact, credit, and demographic information about a business' customers, personnel databases that hold information such as salary, benefits, skills data about employees, Enterprise resource planning that record details about product components, parts inventory, and financial databases that keep track of the organization's money, accounting and financial dealings

What Is E-Commerce?

E-Commerce can be defined as business activities conducted using electronic data transmission via the Internet and WWW. A lot of people think only of business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping on the web as E-Commerce, but in fact, business-to-business (B2B) transactions account for a much larger proportion of revenue generated directly by electronic commerce.

Core Components Of An E-Commerce Website

If you break down any E-Commerce website into its primary components, you would see that it basically involves combining an easy-to-use, manageable website design with a Shopping Cart Program and an Online Merchant Account -- then setting those up through a reliable E-Commerce Hosting provider. If you acquire each of these components and integrate them together, you will have the basics you need to start attracting customers and selling your products & services online.

• Hosting Account - You will need an account from a web hosting provider and you will need to register a domain name for your business (such as www.adamssite.com). To ensure security of online transactions, your E-Commerce Hosting account must have SSL capability -- which is provided by SSL Certificates.
• Business Website - For this component you will either have to build a site yourself, or hire a professional design company to do it for you. We suggest looking into using low-cost Webpage Templates or E-Commerce Templates to fulfill this part of your E-Commerce puzzle rather than paying the higher costs of custom web design.
• Shopping Cart - As with your website's files, any shopping cart program you select will need to be uploaded to you hosting account and installed there. A good Shopping Cart Program will have its own online administrative webpage that allows you to easily add / remove product offerings and update information & pricing on each product.
• Merchant Account - In order to process credit card orders and eChecks from Internet customers, you will need to select an affordable merchant account provider. You can obtain an Online Merchant Account either from your bank or from one of many merchant account services available on the Internet.

Putting them all together into a working E-Commerce website does require some technical knowledge. If you don't have any experience at all within your company for configuring shopping carts and coding them correctly to work with your merchant account, you should seek assistance from a professional web developer.

Your Site Is Up, Your Ready To Receive Orders . . Now What?

A simple explanation of E-Commerce activities would stop at what it takes to build a such a website, but anyone who plans on running an online business will need to address several additional issues. View our E-Commerce Information section to learn more about such topics as attracting customers, order delivery and online customer support.

E-Commerce Information - Beyond Building Your Site

Getting your site up on the Internet is a big step, but its only one step of many that you will have to take to get visitors to your website and turn them into customers. This section is meant to serve as a checklist of E-Commerce information that you should be aware of as you continue to establish your business presence on the Internet.

Wilson Internet - A Site Worth Bookmarking

One great source of E-Commerce information we personally use at Adams Site is Wilson Internet. This website is one of the original E-Commerce information sites on the Internet -- and it continues to be a treasure trove of tips and advice for online business owners. Dr. Wilson provides a wealth of free E-Commerce information, as well as numerous eBooks on E-Commerce and marketing.

Attracting Visitors & Potential Customers

The biggest reason for the failure of so many online businesses is poor marketing. There is not a "Build It And They Will Come" reality on the Internet any longer. New online businesses have to compete with an increasing amount of competition in order to acquire their customers online. Besides including your website and email addresses in your traditional marketing efforts, be aware of the following methods for gaining business exposure on the Internet:

• Get your website listed in Search Engines, and Google in particular. Also get listed in Internet Directories such as Yahoo!, Looksmart and the Open Directory Project.
• Don't just get listed in search engines -- research keywords that searchers type in to find the products and services you offer and optimize your site for these keywords.
• Explore Pay-Per Click Advertising -- the main players in this medium are Google and Yahoo.
• Learn more about Opt-In Email Marketing -- there are plenty of email lists where people are actually asking for information about certain types of products and services, and where no spam is involved.

Order Fulfillment & Package Delivery Services

Ensuring that your order fulfillment procedures are working efficiently will save your business a lot of cancelled orders and credit card charge backs, while keep your customers happy:

• Know beforehand what package delivery system you will use and figure their shipping costs into the pricing of your products.
• If your products are all electronic and downloadable, take some time to learn more about Online Delivery Systems.
• See if your delivery service offers Email Notifications of when packages are shipped or orders are delayed.
• If you'll be taking thousands of orders online, look into integrating Package Tracking on your website. Services like FedEx have a service for this that you can request if you use them for delivering customer orders.

Online Customer Support

Doing business over the Internet has created an entirely new means for providing customer support. Good online support information and processes can help cut some of the costs and time involved in supporting your clients:

• Clearly state support phone numbers, email addresses and hours of operation for your support department.
• Make sure your support department has personnel assigned to quickly answer email support inquiries.
• Have your support personnel put together a good set of Support FAQs for your customers to look at online. Make sure this information is easily found by customers on your website. This kind of information can answer many of the most commonly-asked support questions without requiring customers to email or call you.
• Look into possibly using Live Online Customer Support software to provide another immediate means for customers to contact your support personnel. This type of support is much cheaper than traditional phone support!
• If you will be developing a large online customer base, explore the possibility of using Online Trouble Ticket software to keep track of service requests and the resolutions of each trouble ticket.
• Write an online Privacy Policy -- let your potential visitors know how you will handle their financial information.

Search Engines & Blogs

Search engines are complicated entities. Here is a basic breakdown of how search engines work to bring you the results you're looking for.

What is a search engine?

Basically, a search engine is a software program that searches for sites based on the words that you designate as search terms. Search engines look through their own databases of information in order to find what it is that you are looking for.

Are Search Engines and Directories The Same Thing?

Search engines and Web directories are not the same thing; although the term "search engine" often is used interchangeably. Search engines automatically create web site listings by using spiders that "crawl" web pages, index their information, and optimally follows that site's links to other pages. Spiders return to already-crawled sites on a pretty regular basis in order to check for updates or changes, and everything that these spiders find goes into the search engine database. On the other hand, Web directories are databases of human-compiled results. Web directories are also known as human-powered search engines.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Please note: search engines are not simple. They include incredibly detailed processes and methodologies, and are updated all the time. This is a bare bones look at how search engines work to retrieve your search results. All search engines go by this basic process when conducting search processes, but because there are differences in search engines, there are bound to be different results depending on which engine you use.

1. The searcher types a query into a search engine.
2. Search engine software quickly sorts through literally millions of pages in its database to find matches to this query.
3. The search engine's results are ranked in order of relevancy.

Examples of Search Engines

There are a TON of great search engines out there for you to choose from. Whatever your search need might be, you'll find a search engine to meet it.

• 100 Search Engines in 100 Days: One hundred search engines in an easy to reference table format.
• How to Pick a Search Engine: Pick the best search engine for your searching needs with Search Engines 101, a great way to explore more of your search topic, try a new search engine, and search more of the Web.
• The Ultimate Search Engine List: All-purpose search engines, visual search engines, people search engines...you'll find all these and more in this list of search engines, a comprehensive guide to the best search engines on the Web. 

What are Blogs?

Blogs are web logs that are updated on a regular basis by their author. They can contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.
Blog’s give you an opportunity to write content that is unique to you and your practice. While some people are uncomfortable with self promotion, your blog gives you an occasion to interact with your visitors while promoting who you are and what you do.
Today blog’s are being used for all sorts of purposes. You have companies that use blogs to communicate and interact with customers and other stake holders. Newspapers incorporate blogs to their main website to offer a new channel for their writers. Individuals also created blogs to share with the world their expertise on specific topics. And so on.

How do you get people to read your blog?

One of the ways to attract readers to your blog is to title your postings so that you can get their attention and draw them in to your blog. Take into consideration the basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), when you are writing in your blog, so that you can bring in traffic not only to your blog but to your site. A prime example is the December 10th blog entry for sbplasticsurgeon.com entitled “Botox Safety”. Dr. Lowenstein has placed tags such as Botox, Plastic Surgery, Plastic Surgery in Santa Barbara on his blog thereby boosting his SEO presence.

Where Did Blogs Come From?
The roots of blogging can be traced back to the mid 1990’s. Who the very first blogger was is actually unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until 1999. The original "weblogs" were link-driven sites with personal commentaries. The very first blogs were human guided Internet web tours. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.

Why is Blogging Helpful to Businesses or Individuals?
Just as having an animated image was once cool, blogging has become the trendy thing to do. That does not mean that it is not beneficial to businesses. Businesses struggling to keep fresh, attractive content on their websites to lure visitors back, have found blogs the answer. Content is a necessity for online businesses, both for purposes of being found by search engines but also because it gives visitors a reason to come back.

Blogs & Your Business
You need to determine how a blog will benefit your practice.  Establish a schedule to keep your blog current and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it. Blogs provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of your practice that you may want to showcase by letting you direct the content and having your readers guide you.

The Future of Blogs
While trendy, "blogging" is the wave of the future. Whether it’s a fad, or proves to be a new way to communicate with existing and potential customers it deserves a serious look at the very least.

E-BANKING

For this booklet, e-banking is defined as the automated delivery of new and traditional banking products and services directly to customers through electronic, interactive communication channels. E-banking includes the systems that enable financial institution customers, individuals  or businesses, to access accounts, transact business, or obtain information on financial products and services through a public or private network, including the Internet. Customers access e-banking services using an intelligent electronic device, such as a personal  computer (PC), personal digital assistant (PDA), automated teller machine (ATM), kiosk, or Touch Tone telephone. While the risks and controls are similar for the various e-banking access channels, this booklet focuses specifically on Internet-based services due to the Internet’s widely accessible public network. Accordingly, this booklet begins with a discussion of the two primary types of Internet websites: informational and transactional.

INFORMATIONAL WEBSITES

Informational websites provide customers access to general information about the financial institution and its products or services.

TRANSACTIONAL WEBSITES

Transactional websites provide customers with the ability to conduct transactions through the financial institution’s website by initiating banking transactions or 
buying products and services. Banking transactions can range from something as basic as a retail account balance inquiry to a large business-to-business funds
transfer. E-banking services, like those delivered through other delivery channels, are typically classified based on the type of customer they support.

E-BANKING SUPPORT SERVICES

In addition to traditional banking products and services, financial institutions can provide a variety of services that have been designed or adapted to support e-commerce. Management should understand these services and the risks they pose to the institution. This section discusses some of the most common support services: weblinking, account aggregation, electronic authentication, website hosting, payments for e-commerce, and wireless banking activities.

WEBLINKING

A large number of financial institutions maintain sites on the World Wide Web. Some websites are strictly informational, while others also offer customers the ability to perform financial transactions, such as paying bills or transferring funds between accounts. Virtually every website contains “weblinks.” A weblink is a word, phrase, or image on a webpage that contains coding that will transport the viewer to a different part of the website or a completely different website by just clicking the mouse. While weblinks are a convenient and accepted tool in website design, their use can present certain risks. Generally, the primary risk posed by
weblinking is that viewers can become confused about whose website they are
viewing and who is responsible for the information, products, and services vailable through that website. There are a variety of risk management techniques institutions should consider using to mitigate these risks. These risk management techniques are for those institutions that develop and maintain their own websites, as well as institutions that use third-party service providers for this function. The agencies have issued guidance on weblinking that provides details on risks and risk management techniques financial institutions should consider.

ACCOUNT AGGREGATION

Account aggregation is a service that gathers information from many websites, presents that information to the customer in a consolidated format, and, in some cases, may allow the customer to initiate activity on the aggregated accounts. The information gathered or aggregated can range from publicly available
information to personal account information (e.g., credit card, brokerage, and banking data). Aggregation services can improve customer convenience by avoiding multiple log-ins and providing access to tools that help customers analyze and manage their various account portfolios.

ELECTRONIC AUTHENTICATION

Verifying the identities of customers and authorizing e-banking activities are integral parts of e-banking financial services. Since traditional paper-based and in-person identity authentication methods reduce the speed and efficiency of electronic transactions, financial institutions have adopted alternative
authentication methods, including: Passwords and personal identification
numbers (PINs), Digital certificates using a public key infrastructure (PKI), Microchip-based devices such as smart cards or other types of tokens, Database comparisons (e.g., fraud-screening applications), and Biometric identifiers. The authentication methods listed above vary in the level of security and reliability they provide and in the cost and complexity of their underlying infrastructures. As such, the choice of which technique(s) to use should be commensurate with the risks in the products and services for which they control access.

WEBSITE HOSTING

Some financial institutions host websites for both themselves as well as for other
businesses. Financial institutions that host a business customer’s website usually store, or arrange for the storage of, the electronic files that make up the website. These files are stored on one or more servers that may be located on the hosting financial institution’s premises. Website hosting services require strong skills in networking, security, and programming. The technology and software
change rapidly. Institutions developing websites should monitor the need to adopt new interoperability standards and protocols such as Extensible Mark-Up 
Language (XML) to facilitate data exchange among the diverse population of Internet users. Risk issues examiners should consider when reviewing website hosting services include damage to reputation, loss of customers, or potential liability resulting from: Downtime (i.e., times when website is not available) or inability to meet service levels specified in the contract, Inaccurate website content (e.g., products, pricing) resulting from actions of the institution’s staff or unauthorized changes by third parties (e.g.,hackers), Unauthorized disclosure of confidential information stemming from security breaches, and Damage to computer systems of website visitors due to malicious code (e.g., virus,
worm, active content) spread through institution-hosted sites.

PAYMENTS FOR E-COMMERCE

Many businesses accept various forms of electronic payments for their products and services. Financial institutions play an important role in electronic payment systems by creating and distributing a variety of electronic payment instruments, accepting a similar variety of instruments, processing those payments, and participating in clearing and settlement systems. However, increasingly, financial institutions are competing with third parties to provide support services for e-commerce payment systems.

Person-to-Person Payments

Electronic person- to-person payments, also known as e-mail money, permit consumers to send “money” to any person or business with an e-mail address. 
Under this scenario, a consumer electronically instructs the person-to-person payment service to transfer funds to another individual. The payment service then sends an e-mail notifying the individual that the funds are available and informs him or her of the methods  available to access the funds including requesting a check, transferring the funds to an account at an insured financial
institution, or retransmitting the funds to someone else. Person-to-person payments are typically funded by credit card charges or by an ACH transfer from the consumer’s account at a financial institution. Since neither the payee
nor the payer in the transaction has to have an account with the payment service, such services may be offered by an insured financial institution, but are frequently offered by other businesses as well. Some of the risk issues xaminers should consider when reviewing bill payment, presentment, and e-mail money services include: Potential liability for late payments due to service disruptions, Liability for bill payment instructions originating from someone other than the
deposit account holder, Losses from person-to-person payments funded by transfers from credit cards or deposit accounts over which the payee does not have signature authority, Losses from employee misappropriation of funds held pending access instructions from the payer, and Potential liability directing payment availability Information to the wrong e-mail or for releasing funds in response to e-mail from someone other than the intended payee.

WIRELESS E-BANKING

Wireless banking is a delivery channel that can extend the reach and enhance the convenience of Internet banking products and services.Wireless banking occurs when customers access a financial institution's network(s) using cellular phones, pagers, and personal digital assistants (or similar  devices) through
telecommunication companies’ wireless networks.

Database

A database is a collection of persistent data.   This implies that the stored data can stand on its own and has some permanence. 

	Databases may include collections of information about people (names, addresses, etc.) or things (quantities, status, locations, etc.).
	The idea of permanence is that the data is maintained and even accumulated over a period of time.

Building Blocks of Databases

Building on the concept of the field, if we group a set of fields together, we have a record. 

A record is a grouping of facts that have some relationship.  For example: name, address, city, state, zip code, and phone number are examples of fields that describe characteristics of a person and make up a record. 

Therefore, a database is a collection of records that describe a group of things that share these characteristics.

Databases have three basic purposes:

1. To capture and manage potentially large sets of information.
2. To add, delete, and update the data in the database. 
3. To provide various ways to view the data in the database.

Databases can contain thousands and even millions of records.  They may be used to capture data on many transactions per second over hours, days, and even years.

A key feature of databases is that data can be appended to the database, removed as needed, and modified as desired.  Data is often fluid in the sense that it changes over time and many databases have powerful tools for maintaining the data.

Finally, what good is data if it cannot be retrieved and displayed?  Database software programs enable users to extract or query for one or more fields, single records, sets of records, and even summarize data for collections of records.  The result of a database query can be output to the screen, to a printer or exported to other applications.

From a business perspective, there are many ways to look at how databases are used:

	Inventory management: keeping track of goods, disposition, location, and transactions.
	Data warehousing: organizing and managing valuable corporate information.
	Sales: what was sold, who bought it, and for how much.
	Personnel management: who is doing what and when are they doing it.
	Time management: keeping track of the days, months, and years.

 Data Processing and Database Management Systems

A database management system (DBMS) is a software package that allows users to interact with data in a database.    The DBMS is responsible for defining the structure of databases  (i.e, file formatting), and how the data is accessed and processed.  Data processing is the actual effort of using a DBMS to accomplish work.

There are a number reasons for database processing including:

	Lowering costs – by centrally organizing information, it is now available to many users to make sound business decisions.
	Enables new ways to look at data – database processing allows you to access and retrieve data in ways that are useful to decision-making processes.
	Sharing of data- the most obvious benefit of allowing many to access data in central repository.
	Eliminating redundancy – a well-designed database can efficiently store information in a single place for maintenance and updating.
	Consistency – databases provide a centralized repository that is constant to the needs of the organization.
	Creating data integrity – centralized databases enable organizations to assure that data is reliable and accurate.
	Data Security – information is a valuable commodity to many organizations; databases enable you to know where it is at all times.
	Increase productivity – databases enable organizations to share information efficiently increasing performance and reducing costs.

 Database Applications and Systems

Database applications are software programs that support complex and potentially large sets of information.  A database system includes the software program and related elements such as the operating system and hardware.There are numerous database products that are available on the commercial market.  Some of these products include:

	Microsoft Access and FoxPro
	Oracle
	Sybase
	Microsoft SQL Server
	IBM DB2
	Informix
	Filemaker
	Gupta
	Xbase

Computer Graphics

Pixel Graphics

As many people are aware, the screen of a computer monitor is composed of a grid of dots. These dots, called pixels, have red, green and blue elements, which combine to produce a single color per pixel. Pixel graphics are those 2D images that concern themselves with the exact color of each pixel on the screen.
This kind of image is useful primarily because it can store exact information about each pixel. This is good for complicated images such as photographs and detailed drawings.

Color Palettes

A color palette is the set of colors from which a bitmap is composed. Technically, it defines the mapping from the numbers in the bitmap to the colors of the pixels on the screen. Ideally, of course, there should be a continuum of color values encompassing every possible color in nature. However, the computer would therefore have to assign each of these infinite colors an individual number, so that it could represent them internally, which would require either a continuous domain representation, or the entire set of integers. This cannot be done because the modern digital computer cannot represent an infinite number of values.

Image Compression Formats

A major element of the computer graphics industry is image compression. The largest and most complete format for an image is the bitmap form, for which each pixel has a unique color value stored. Ultimately, every image becomes a bitmap when it is displayed, but often it is convenient to store and transfer images in a compressed format, in which the file size is smaller than that which would arise when stored in a bitmap format.
It is important to know a little about image compression formats, because their characteristics can determine the quality of a final displayed image, and some are more appropriate for different types of images than others.

Vector Graphics

Vector graphics store the information about the picture to be displayed in the form of geometric objects described by coordinates. The description ‘vector’ arises from the fact that each coordinate can be thought of as a vector from the origin to the coordinate point. The geometric objects included are highly dependant upon the file format used, but can conceivably be any object which can be well defined by a small set of coordinate points. Examples of objects stored can include lines, ellipses, spline curves, text glyphs, etc.

There are also many difference forms of vector graphic file formats available. Examples include MS Windows metafiles, Autodesk DXF files and Macromedia Shockwave objects. There is no widely accepted vector graphic format available, and most are proprietary formats that are not available for incorporation into other products. The DXF format is debatably the most commonly used.


3D Graphics

Beyond the world of 2-dimensional, flat graphics, exists the exciting world of 3-dimensional graphics. More often than not, these 3D graphics are displayed on a 2-dimensional computer screen, by projection from the 3D volume to the 2D plane.

Polygons and Primitives

Using current technology, 3D graphics are rendered, that is placed upon the screen, by evaluating a scene that is described by a set of primitives and polygons. Broadly, a primitive can be thought of as a basic element of a scene description language. A primitive can be such things as a sphere, box, cone, cylinder, NURBS curve, and even a polygon. Polygons are many-sided shapes (starting with triangles) which represent a single face on a multi-faceted object.

E-Commerce

What is e-Commerce?

E-commerce is an emerging concept that describes the process of buying and selling or exchanging of products, services, and information via computer networks including the internet.

Definition of E-Commerce from Different Perspective

1. Communications Perspective

EC is the delivery of information, products/services, or payments over the telephone lines, computer networks or any other electronic means.

2. Business Process Perspective

EC is the application of technology toward the automation of business transactions and work flow.

3. Service Perspective

EC is a tool that addresses the desire of firms, consumers, and management to cut service costs while improving the quality of goods and increasing the speed of service delivery.

4. Online Perspective

EC provides the capability of buying and selling products and information on the internet and other online services.

Benefit of e-Commerce

• Access new markets and extend service offerings to customers
• Broaden current geographical parameters to operate globally
• Reduce the cost of marketing and promotion
• Improve customer service
• Strengthen relationships with customers and suppliers
• Streamline business processes and administrative functions

Scope of E-Commerce

• Marketing, sales and sales promotion
• Pre-sales, subcontracts, supply
• Financing and insurance
• Commercial transactions: ordering, delivery, payment
• Product service and maintenance
• Co-operative product development
• Distributed co-operative working
• Use of public and private services
• Business-to-administrations (e.g. customs, etc)
• Transport and logistics
• Public procurement
• Automatic trading of digital goods
• Accounting
• Dispute resolution

History of E-commerce

The history of e commerce is a history of how Information Technology has transformed business processes. Some authors will track back the history of e commerce to the invention of the telephone at the end of last century. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is widely viewed as the beginning of ecommerce if we consider ecommerce as the networking of business communities and digitalization of business information.

Large organizations have been investing in development of EDI since sixties. It has not gained reasonable acceptance until eighties. EDI has never reached the level of popularity of the web-based ecommerce for several reasons:

• High cost of EDI prohibited small businesses and medium-sized companies from participating in the electronic commerce;
• Slow development of standards hindered the growth of EDI; and
• The complexity of developing EDI applications limited its adaptation to a narrow user base.