ECW13
Office Futures
ECW13
Issue 13, August 8, 2000
+++ More on Standards
+++ Underarm pitch - excuse for a rant
+++ A Glossary of Electronic Commerce and Related Terms (Part 1: 10K to ISP)
+++ About eComWatch
+++ More on standards
John Williams, of Imasys Ltd, has suggested an addition to the list of standards we examined in the last issue (see ECW 12: "Ecommerce standards: why they are needed and what some of them do"). In an email to us, he says:
Here's another one to watch in the standards arena BASDA (www.basda.org) and their eBIS-XML initiative, which has considerable support among the accounting software community. As they say in the Guides Michelin "worth a look" or possibly even "worth a detour".
Well, we did as John suggested and agree with him, with one proviso: this is not so much a standard as an implementation of Microsoft's BizTalk Framework, mentioned last time. All the same, it is worth devoting some words to.
BASDA is the Business & Accounting Software Developers' Association, a UK-wide trade organization. As its Web site says, the UK is one of the world's most competitive markets for these products. As well as home-grown software, including that from the Sage group, there are US products using the UK as a staging post for a move into Europe and European packages going the other way. It cites a UK market size for accounting and human resources software market of over GBP600 million, with more than 800 different products being marketed. BASDA has over 200 members, and its EMU Accreditation Standard is accepted across the EU.
eBIS-XML itself is an award-winning solution to the problem of getting all these packages, or the modern ones, at least, to work together. It hasn't succeeded in that yet -- not all packages are capable of using XML -- but is showing promising beginnings. The purpose of it is to enable the direct exchange of purchase orders, invoices and other business documents between different software packages, using e-mail and the Internet. It obviates the need for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) middleware or Value Added Networks.
To achieve eBIS-XML certification, packages must meet the following requirements and undertake BASDA's automated test procedures:
1) Use valid and well-formed XML
2) Pass a series of test messages for one or more of the following stages:
a) from Web site to back office
b) for sales order processing
c) for purchase order processing
3) Use messages capable of being routed via standard packages
4) Display the message as a document using a style sheet.
About half a dozen products have passed these tests, so far, with more on the way. The Web site for the standard is at http://www.ebis-xml.org/.
All told, then, this has been detour worth taking. Thanks for telling us about it, John. (John Williams can be contacted at 0161 972 2600 or John.Williams@imasys.co.uk.)
-oOo-
+++ Underarm pitch excuse for a rant
Every now and again you get a really good excuse for a rant. The CEO of our local telco had the temerity to write an article in our local (PEI, Canada) paper suggesting that the Maritimes region needed a broadband network and that they might be the very folks to build it. I of course fired off a letter suggesting gently that this might not be quite the ticket. A policy wonk rang me up and asked if I'd mind expanding on that. Well, I ask you! Here's a slightly edited ver of the rant:
[Rant begins]
My perspective is that of one who has been on line the better part of 20 years, most of them as a hapless victim of telcos that failed to understand data on line, failed to understand the Internet and latterly the World Wide Web (and, oddly, failed even to understand the network economics so graphically illustrated by the dissemination of fax).
Mind you, monks in the scriptorium failed to understand Gutenberg and no fewer than five centuries later the direct effects of his invention are still being felt in social and political change. In a sense, we are seeing a rerun of the unholy tactics the telegraph companies used in the early days against telephone. Those tactics included predatory pricing, use of political influence to affect commercial decisions, discriminatory supply. I have not heard of the use of actual violence, which, I believe, was used by the telegraph companies. [But wait until competition the mobile market really hots up in outer Europe]
Bill MacPherson of Holland College and his colleagues describe the telco business model as the management (implied: by price) of scarce resources. Their model is predicated on narrow band, circuit-switched (smart), expensive, proprietary, centralized, hierarchical networks. The Internet model posits high speed, packet-switched (IP, dumb), cheap, open-standard (TCP/IP et al), distributed, peer-to-peer networks.
I find that a more helpful model for non-technical audiences is railroads versus roads, especially as the railroad was also a scarce resource managed (by price) by monopolies.
In a railroad (with some latter day exceptions), the railroad owns the track, the signalling and the trains. It also owns the marshalling yards and freight depots and much more besides. The railroad tells you what will travel, when, where and for how much..
By contrast, the road system (again with exceptions) is a public infrastructure free for use by anyone who observes certain rules (the equivalent of open standards), obtains necessary licences, etc. The user decides on the vehicle, the load, the route and within certain wide parameters, controls price (cost, power, speed and loads generally being trade-offs which the user can arbitrage). [This freedom, though, is available only to those who can afford the capital cost of a motor vehicle; public transport is the only choice open to the poor. Roger. Bit of internal debate here: Roger, there are bicycles, which also fit the road model, and of course my old standby, hitch-hiking.]
The telcos claim Internet expertise. To anyone in the business, this is laughable. (Our local telco's understanding of Internet security was so rudimentary that anyone doing a reverse lookup of them on their clients would have found them located in Afghanistan.) A blacksmith had no necessary understanding of an internal combustion engine; the monk had no necessary understanding of movable type.
The telco business model is the opposite of what rapid expansion of high speed networks requires. I have seen various equivalents of Moore's Law for the network: most suggest a relationship (squared, cubed, whatever) between the number of nodes on a network and its value.
My first fax machine cost $7,500 and only one of my clients had one. The value of the fax network to me could be quantified in terms of savings in time, couriers, telephone calls, but was limited. Five years later, fax was pretty much a free adjunct to my computer and I could reach millions of users. The opportunity cost of utilising the network approached zero. By contrast, the value of the network was huge. The e-mail model is even more compelling.
The ideal Internet model is hundreds of millions of users paying peanuts for a network of incalculable worth. The ideal telco model is one huge customer who pays an infinite fee and never uses the network.
Hmm. Actually, the ideal telco model would incorporate traffic charges. The telcos and people like Novell keep suggesting it would be nice if they set up a better directory structure for the Internet. This would of course be lethal and would facilitate throughput charging. You have probably seen BT's extraordinary claim that they have a patent on the hyperlink and would rather like to be paid royalties. I seem to recall Compuserve and Unisys trying a similar sort of stunt with GIF image files a while back.. [Unisys are still muttering about the matter.]
Will telcos ever get it?
Telegraph companies didn't. Railroads didn't. Steamship companies didn't.
Are we willing to bet a cornerstone of regional policy and a chance to put the geographical fringe at the technological centre on the ability of a small subsidiary of BCE (bell Canada) to get right what telcos around the world continue to get wrong?
If you doubt, look at their existing practices. Don't listen to the PR guys in thousand dollar suits or deputy ministers.
Ask the line techs in government departments. Ask the ISPs for whom the telco is both competitor and supplier. Ask the companies they have partnered with and shafted.
Ask the small IT companies to whom they say "working with us would be strategic", in the same way a gentleman with a bulge in his left armpit says "Nice little restaurant you have here". Look at the Internet products they have licensed and resold starting with the glorious tale of i-Cat, which they bragged about as part of their "world class" solution.
Telcoms markets worldwide are gradually being liberalized. With Bell in Canada and the Baby Bells in the US, we are seeing attempts to recreate the monolithic telco with the argument that size is necessary for the critical mass the infrastructure and the complexity of the new economy requires. This is, of course, nonsense. Although Bill's headline figure is about $50m for "to every door" dark fibre, the actual figure (which he agrees) is probably closer to $25m for the whole of PEI. If the telco gains (regains) control of the basic infrastructure, we return to square one in terms of cost, access, innovation.
Perhaps the most interesting thing we have discovered in our faltering understanding of networks is that innovation and change happen at the edge.
The ramshackle excellence of the Internet came and continues to come out of eccentricity, passion, anger, heterodoxy and weird people and places. The paradigm-busting stuff is still coming from the fringes (financial, geographic, lunatic): Napster, GNUtella, VOIP. The killer apps come from the folks outside looking in, not from IBM. Oracle or Corel.
That's us. That's what we're good at out here on the Atlantic fringe. The chances of that coming out of an asset-stripped regional telco sweating blood for quarterly results for their masters in Central Canada are:
a) excellent
b) pretty fair
c) I can name 4 premiers who shouldn't bet the shop on it
Thanks for letting me rant. It was fun.
[Rant ends]
-oOo-
+++ A Glossary of Electronic Commerce and Related Terms (Part 1: 10K to ISP)
Roger writes: I have included in this glossary the technical terms you are most likely to encounter in reading about and engaging in electronic commerce. If you seek further or other definitions, especially of technical aspects, an excellent online resource is the WhatIs site, at http://www.whatis.com. Also useful is http://www2.computerworld.com/res/quickstudy.html.
Leaning more to the programming ('hacking') side of things is The Jargon File or New Hacker's Dictionary, a discursive and entertaining guide to Unix and Internet jargon (see http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/).
10-K = Official financial report from US companies, issued annually to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Is usually more revealing than a company's annual report to shareholders (stockholders) and freely available on the Web.
ACD = Automatic call distributor (or distribution). Computer-based system for putting incoming telephone calls into a queue and passing them in sequence to the next available human operator.
ADSL = Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line. Method of sending high-bandwidth transmissions over copper cable. Uses modems that receive faster than they send -- 6 Mbps downstream and 220 Kbps upstream) -- hence 'asymmetrical' (cf. videotext). See DSL.
Affiliate = A human agent for an organization, who gains commissions from sales or other activities originated through his or her Web site. Also applies to a small organization that acts for a larger one.
Affiliate marketing = Using affiliates as a marketing agents, typically paying a traffic-based commission for the placement of linking banner advertisements on their Web sites. Also known as syndicated selling or online franchising.
Agent = 1. A piece of software that can accept instructions from a human being or other software and carry them out independently, often over a distance. Sometimes called an intelligent agent. See Shopbot. 2. Person whose job it is to deal with outgoing or incoming telephone calls, usually from a call centre.
ANX = Automotive Network eXchange. A closed trading network for the US industry, based upon Internet methods. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (as was) were its sponsors. See ENX.
AOL = America Online. Commercial provider of mail, text conferencing, information distribution, file transfer and Internet services. Owns Netscape, CompuServe and ICQ.
Apache = Open source Web server that runs on Unix. The most popular server software on the Internet.
API = Application program(ming) interface. A set of standardized methods and formats to allow applications programs to use the data and services of other software.
App = Slang abbreviation of 'application program'.
Applet = Small module of software, summoned when necessary but otherwise quiescent. An intrinsic element of compound document architectures, such as JavaBeans.
Application = Shorthand for 'application program'. (Properly speaking, the application is the job the application software is there to do.)
Application program = The software that converts human or business requirements into computer commands.
Approved supplier = An organization, occasionally a person, that supplies goods or services to another organization and that has met and continues to meet that organization's standards with regard to quality, speed, cost, service and so on.
ARPAnet = A packet-switched network, developed under US Government auspices, that was the precursor of the Internet. Later became DARPAnet. See Packet Switching.
ASP 1. = Active Server Pages. Microsoft method for writing interactive Web applications. 2. Application Service Provider. ISP who also offers online application programs to its customers.
Asymmetric key = A security cypher or algorithm that is used for either encryption or decryption, e.g. RSA (cf Symmetric key).
ATM 1. = Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A switched, as opposed to broadcast, method for the high-speed transmission of packets of digital data. One of the bases of broadband ISDN. 2. Automatic teller machine. The 'hole in the wall' bank terminal. First put into public use by Barclays Bank, in Britain, in 1969.
Authentication = Means of verifying the identity of a server or browser with whom a user wishes to communicate, or vice versa. (See digital signature.).
Back office = Where the 'boiler room' computer systems reside, performing the background processes that are often only indirectly related to selling and servicing. Still done in batch mode in some companies. See Front office and Mid office.
Backbone = A bus (or hub or trunk) for connecting dissimilar communication systems. Typically used to join varied electronic mail products.
Bandwidth = Properly, the range of frequencies in use on a system, such as a network, or a component of it. Has come to mean, not always accurately, the transmission or processing capacity of a system or component. Usually expressed in Hertz.
Banner = A form of display advertisement on the World Wide Web, so called after print media practice. Consists of a reserved area on a Web page, sometimes replaced each time the page is displayed on a browser. Originally, as the name suggests, a 'banner' was the advertisement spanning the top of the page, but its meaning has broadened.
BBS = Bulletin board system. A type of text conferencing system. Lacks the flexibility and multi-threading features of full conferencing systems.
Biometrics = Identifying a person by measuring a particular physical or behavioural characteristic and comparing it to the characteristics of many people. A fingerprint is a biometric.
Bolero = Service providing secure, guaranteed transmission of trade documents in electronic form. Backed by S.W.I.F.T and the TT (Through Transport) Club, which acts for logistics suppliers.
BPR = Business process re-engineering. The radical and company-wide evaluation and revitalization of business processes.
bps = Bits per second. A measure of transmission speed in computer networks. Usually expressed as kilobits (thousands) or megabits (millions) per second -- kbps and Mbps.
Brochureware = Pejorative term for a company Web site that lacks updated content or means of interaction, and contains just an inert display of information about the organization or its offerings.
Browser = The client software in a World Wide Web system that 'renders' (transliterates) an HTML or XML-coded document into something readable by humans. Usually, but not necessarily, has a graphical user interface. (Lynx is an example of a text-based browser). See HTML, XHTML and XML.
Buy side = Denotes systems to enable and manage online purchasing that are owned by the purchasing organization and that drive its commerce site. See Sell side.
CA = Certification authority. An organisation that can confirm the relationship between a business and the Internet-based transaction it is executing, as well as the relationship between the business and its public key. Verisign and Thawte are two well-known CAs. See Public key.
Cable modem = Device that allows a digital computer to receive data down a TV cable. The name is a misnomer, since cable TV data signals are already digital. See modem.
Call centre = An arrangement of several telephone lines and fewer people ('agents'), taking or making calls in rotation, such as for telesales, product support or customer enquiries. Most call centres use an automatic call distribution system.
Catalogue software = The electronic equivalent to a printed mail-order catalogue. On the Web, can be interactive and can include video, sound, links to other parts of the site and so on. It can also be dynamically updated and reflect current stock positions and delivery costs and times.
CATV = Community antenna television. Cable TV, in other words.
CCITT = The initials (in French) of the International Consultative Committee for Telegraphy and Telephony. Produces technical standards (or 'recommendations') for computer and telephone communications, such as X.25, X.400 and X.500.
Chat = Real-time text conferencing. Once a unit of text (a sentence, for example) is typed in on one machine, it appears on the other machine or machines. See ICQ.
Checkout = Where payment is made, both on the Web and in real shops.
Churn = In marketing, a measure of customer turnover or 'disloyalty'.
Circuit switching = Telecommunications method in which an exclusive path is established between the entities in contact and kept open for the duration of the call. Used in telephone systems, for instance, including GSM.
Click-through = The act of clicking on an online advertisement.
Click-through rate = The number of click-throughs divided by the number of impressions for a given advertisement. The take-up rate, in other words.
Click-stream = The series of pages and sites that a user visits during a session. Keeping a track of these provides useful information about the visitor's interests.
Cookie = A small file sent to reside on a Web browser by a server, typically to record customizing information that would otherwise have to be re-entered by the user.
Corporate memory = Allows users to capture the details of files, decisions, textual
system = exchanges and software tools used in a process, such as a large-scale project, for recreation and re-use at a later date. Also called an organizational memory system.
Coupon = 1. In retailing, a voucher, exchangeable for cash, a price reduction or some other benefit. 2. In investing, the amount of interest paid on a bond. It was originally a detachable part of a bond certificate, presented to the issuer when collecting interest payments.
CPM = Literally, cost per mill, i.e. the cost of each thousand impressions. The charge made for displaying an advertisement. A term originating in paper publishing and translated directly to Web use.
CRM = Customer relationship management. The use of computers to assist in dealing with customers. Typically built around a database of customer and trading details, updated from the site and elsewhere, that allows some form of profiling of those customers..
Cryptography = Literally, secret or coded writing. In electronic communication, the 'scrambling' of data and messages to prevent reading by unauthorized persons.
CTI = Computer-telephony integration. The linking of telephone and computer systems to allow the control of voice storage and switching by the computer. Also the reverse, allowing voice control of computing activities.
Customer-facing = Requiring or involving contact with customers. Sometimes contrasted with the equally pretentious 'product-facing'.
Customization = The modification by a user of what he sees on someone else's Web site, such as a supplier's (cf Personalization).
Cyberspace = Where computers connect with networks; also, a once-fashionable term for the Internet. Coined by sci-fi writer William Gibson in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, where he described it as 'a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions..'
Data mining = Extracting information from data. By examining statistics and trends, forming inferences about the meaning of the data held, typically, in company computers.
Data warehouse = Central store for all or most of an organization's business data. Known to IBM and its customers as an 'information warehouse'. Small versions, for special or local use are called 'data marts'.
Demand chain = The companies and activities involved in an organization's outbound movement of goods and components. The customer-side equivalent to the supply chain.
DES = Data Encryption Standard. Security protocol, developed by IBM and adopted in 1977 by the US National Security Agency.
Digital certificate = Encrypted electronic document that confirms the validity of the link between a public key and its issuer.
Digital signature = A security method involving the creation of a (more or less) unique electronic 'stamp' to authenticate electronic documents or messages.
Discussion group = Internet users' name for text conferencing. See Usenet.
Disintermediation = Cutting out the middleman. A term that arose in banking in the 1980s, now applied mainly to the supposed effects of electronic commerce.
DNS 1. = Domain Name System. The distributed name and address database used on the Internet. Relates ('maps') a domain name such as 'www.office-futures.com' to the underlying numerical identifier that the Internet's systems use (207.68.72.62, in this case). 2. Digital Nervous System. Microsoft name for its latest method for linking distributed computers. Somewhat of a 'marketecture'.
Document management = The practice of recording and managing all stages in the production of significant documents and all versions of them.
Domain = An area on a system or network that can be managed as a single entity.
DSL = Digital Subscriber Line. Way of sending high-bandwidth transmissions over copper cable. There are numerous and, of course, incompatible standards, the most popular looking to be ADSL.
DTD = Document type definition. The definition of how a language such as SGML or XML is applied to a particular document. It travels with the file and tells the receiving machine how to convert the coded material with in it to a different format, readable either by humans or by other software. See SGML and XML.
E-business = 1. A trading organization that has integrated electronic commerce within all its relevant operations. 2. What such an organization conducts, which some commentators feel is more than or different to 'ordinary' electronic commerce.
E-cash = 1. Electronic currency that replaces money in online transactions. Includes credit cards, electronic cheques and digital coins. See Micropayment. 2. Name of digital payment system from DigiCash.
E-cheque = Electronic cheque. Promises to combine the speed and efficiency of electronic transactions with the familiarity to users and the law of paper cheques. E-check is an US pioneer of this.
E-commerce = Electronic commerce.
E-tailing = Retailing over the Internet. One of a rash of 'e-' expressions being inflicted on the world.
EAI = Enterprise applications integration. Joining together an organization's main computer systems so that they can share and exchange data efficiently.
Ecommerce = Electronic commerce.
ECR = Efficient Consumer Response. Consultancy-led programme among retailers to improve their demand chain operations. See EFR.
EDI = Electronic data interchange. The inter-company exchange of business data, carried direct from computer to computer. Typically deals with trade documentation such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping forms. Uses predefined formats, typically conforming to either of two standards -- X.12 in the USA and EDIFACT in Europe.
Edutainment = Nonce word, from a combination of 'education' and 'entertainment', meaning interactive multimedia intended to make it 'fun' to learn. Closely related to 'infotainment'.
EFR = Efficient Foodservice Response. Making fast food faster. US equivalent to ECR for diners, snackeries and restaurant chains. Its director is one Perry L. Fri.
Electronic commerce = The prelude to, act of and activities arising from the buying and selling of supplies and services using electronic networks.
Electronic mail = A means of conveying messages and associated files between human beings. Runs either on its own or as part of a corporate or external messaging service. Works in 'store and forward' mode.
Electronic messaging = A store-and-forward network service for conveying data from one entity, such as a person or a program, to another. Embraces electronic mail but is often, unhelpfully, used as a synonym for it.
Electronic purse = Semiconductor device, such as a smart card, for storing monetary value. Can be used as payment card. Cf Electronic wallet.
Electronic signature = An electronic key or other attribute attached to an electronic document that uniquely relates it to a person or other entity.
Electronic wallet = Software on a consumer's computer that contains encrypted payment and billing information used to order goods online. Cf Electronic purse.
Email = Or e-mail. Electronic mail.
Encryption = The encoding or scrambling of data, in a message for instance, so that only the sender and the intended recipient(s) can decypher ('decrypt') it.
ENX = European Network Exchange. Old World version of ANX, based upon similar methods and operating principles. All the major European car makers are participants. See ANX.
ERP = Enterprise Resource Planning. A class of application software that, originally, provided central control of and a unified systems environment for the computer systems in manufacturing companies. These days being extended into other sectors and into inter-company systems.
Extranet = Nonce word for an externally-hosted corporate intranet. Often the server is managed by a service organization; occasionally it is owned by it as well, as part of an all-embracing offering.
FAQ = Frequently-Asked Questions. File placed on Web sites and Usenet groups that lists commonly-encountered questions, with suitable answers.
Filter = In e-mail and discussion groups, user-defined set of parameters that dictate the destination of incoming messages, such as to particular directories or folders. Can also ignore or expunge certain kinds of message or messages from certain people. These are then described as being on that user's 'kill list'.
Firewall = A system that controls access from one network to another. Typically placed between a company network and the public network and is usually the first line of defence around corporate data.
Front office = Traditionally, in banks for instance, where a firm's employees deal with customers. The 'customer facing' part. See Mid office and Back office.
FTP = File Transfer Protocol. A way of distributing files over a network, typically over the Internet.
Fulfilment = Moving a finished product directly from factory to distributor or customer, or from a middleman to the customer.
GPRS = General Packet Radio Service. Packet switching over GSM cellular networks. Allows Internet-based services to be applied easily to cellphones. See UMTS.
Groupware = Software that helps people collaborate. The two main types are real-time or synchronous, such as videoconferencing, and asynchronous, such as electronic mail.
GSM = Global System for Mobile Communications (originally Groupe Sp,cial Mobile). European standard for digital cellular telephones. Will eventually be superseded by GPRS and UMTS.
Hit 1. = The accessing of a file on a Web site. Used as a (rough) measure of site popularity. Not to be confused with 'visits', which is measure of the number of times a site itself is accessed. In other words, a visit normally entails several hits, because several files will be accessed each time. 2. A successful result from a search of a database or index. A single search operation may yield several hits.
Home page = 1. The first page that visitors see when visiting a Web site. 2. The page that a Web browser goes to first when it is opened by its user.
Host = 1. (Noun.) The computer on which server software runs. (See Web Server.) 2. (Verb.) To act in that capacity.
Hot link = A zone on a Web page, typically a home page, that links directly another Web site, such as that of a trading partner. See Hyperlink.
HTML = HyperText Markup Language. The standard method for defining electronic pages for the World Wide Web. A dialect (purists would say 'an application') of SGML. See, also, XML.
HTTP = HyperText Transfer Protocol. The standard command method for summoning material or actions over the World Wide Web. S-HTTP is the secure version. See Hypertext and URL.
Hyperlink = The hidden address associated with a piece of text or an image that takes a viewer elsewhere. A fundamental operation with the World Wide Web. See Hypertext and URL.
Hypertext = Elements of text linked by invisible threads, as in the World Wide Web. The term, literally meaning 'above the text', was reputedly coined in 1965 by Theodore (Ted) Nelson, the inventor of an early hypertext scheme, called Xanadu. Has given rise to the term 'hypermedia', a term used by purists (despite mixing Greek and Latin) to refer to links that go also to sound or vision elements or files.
Hz = Hertz. A measure of frequency, equivalent to one cycle per second, named after the German scientist, Heinrich Hertz.
i-Mode = Japanese data and applications service for mobile telephones, run by NTT's DoCoMo division.
ICQ = 'I seek you'. Proprietary form of Internet chat, or instant messaging, that was bought by AOL in 1998. Has imitators from Netscape and Microsoft but is still the favourite, with 50 million users in December 1999.
Impression = The successful downloading of an advertisement to a Web browser.
Infrastructure = The underlying foundation, whether literal or figurative, for an activity or system. The Internet is the infrastructure of the World Wide Web, for instance.
Intellectual property = The notion of the ownership and legal protection of ideas and their expression, as embodied in patents and copyright. With reference to computer software, partly or wholly rejected by the open source movement.
internet (small 'i') = Generic term, meaning any collection of networks that can function as a single, large virtual network.
Internet = A specific federated network of computer networks that use the TCP/IP protocol. Consists of various national backbone nets and multitudinous regional, private and university networks around the world.
Internet appliance = Any device that is not a personal computer (whether IBM-style or an Apple Macintosh) but which connects to the Internet. PDAs and MP3 players are examples.
Interstitial = Advertisement that pops up in a separate window during the time -- the interstice -- between leaving one Web page and opening another. Some contain graphics so large that the content of destination page arrives first (making the advertisement an extrastitial?).
Intinert = An organization that through fear, indolence, ignorance or stupidity is doing nothing to capitalise on the opportunities offered by the Internet and IP-based networking.
Intranet = Internal (or virtual private) network based on Internet standards, especially those pertaining to the World Wide Web. Becoming increasingly debased, through misuse, to mean almost any internal network. See, also, extranet.
IP = Internet Protocol, the routing part of TCP/IP. The present release (IPv4) works on 32 bits. The next version -- IPv6 or IP Next Generation -- provides 128-bit addressing, more than enough for everyone on the planet.
ISDN = Integrated Services Digital Network. An international standard (CCITT I.420) for wide-area multimedia networks.
ISP = Internet service provider. A business that retails access to the Internet. Some only 'sell bandwidth'; others provide associated services.
Part 2 will appear in ECW 14.
-oOo-
About eComWatch
eComWatch is edited and published by Roger Whitehead and Christopher Ogg. Copyright Roger Whitehead and Christopher Ogg, 2002. eComWatch may be circulated freely in its original format with copyright notice intact. For permission to reproduce any article,