Network World Fusion, 3/25/98
Boston - The rush to electronic commerce is much like the 1849 gold rush, said Don Harbert, vice president of Digital Equipment Corp.'s Internet business unit. And Digital is heading west, he told attendees of his morning keynote here at Internet Commerce Expo.
With projects under way for business-to-business commerce, Digital is following what the Input Group predicted to be a $120 billion market by the year 2000.
MISTI is based on Digital's AltaVista search technology. The project, still in development, is an online cataloging system that combines information from various suppliers into one database. Users can search based on product, without knowing what vendor offers what product, Harbert said.
This is similar to a product detailed by Mark Hoffman of Commerce One, Inc. yesterday during his keynote. And it follows on the trend of adding combined, integrated services to online commerce.
Another effort Digital is pushing forward with is its Millicent project, Harbert said.
"Right now, small-dollar transactions are prohibitive online," he said. Whether the credit card costs are too great or the incentive too low for vendors, companies have been shying away from offering these types of goods. With Millicent, which had its public pilot in January, the stigma is removed by reducing the cost of transactions. Vendors of music singles, newspaper articles and other small-dollar items will be able to set up shop on the Web, he said. Harbert did not detail the technology behind Millicent.
Out of the operating system, onto the Web
"We have typically thought of the operating system as the architecture for networks," Harbert said. "With electronic commerce, that platform is now the Web." Therefore, he urged IS managers to reengineer their networks with the Internet as a company's infrastructure and the Web as the deployment platform.
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