John,
Below is a short article from today's Information Week emailing.
If you want more info on EPAY, you may want to check the epay bulletin board on yahoo.com.
Best wishes.
** Anthrax Worries May Boost E-Commerce
Fear of anthrax-tainted mail is leading some companies and
consumers to rely less on snail mail and more on E-mail and
E-commerce. IT managers must be prepared by increasing bandwidth
and the number of servers to handle the loads, while implementing
appropriate applications to manage more E-marketing campaigns and
accept E-payments.
More customers are turning to E-payments as a way to work around
postal problems and fears. For example, Potomac Electric Power
Co., a utility that serves 720,000 customers in the Washington,
D.C., area, didn't receive any mail from Oct. 22 through Oct. 25
because anthrax was discovered in a local post office. More
customers then paid their bills electronically--2,700 logons from
Oct. 22 through Oct. 24, compared with 1,900 over the same number
of days the week before. Anthrax fears may not be the only reason
for the spike; the utility had already begun an ad campaign to
encourage E-payments.
As more business is conducted on the Web, some companies also may
turn to digital certificates to authenticate a user's identity,
although several analysts say they don't expect a huge surge in
their use. Anthrax creates another reason to turn to digital
signatures, but won't be the primary reason companies will do so,
says Frank Prince, a security analyst at Forrester Research. "I
would expect companies that have already started investigating or
piloting digital-signature technology to accelerate those
initiatives," Prince says.
Electronic marketing initiatives also may shift. The Direct
Marketing Association is advising its 4,700 members to include
return addresses on direct-mail and send E-mail messages to alert
customers that snail mail is coming. Kronos Inc., a provider of
time and attendance products, sent 4,000 direct-mail pieces to
potential business buyers without a return address, a common
practice because recipients wonder who sent it and open the mail.
The letters included a sound chip, which when X-rayed caused some
to mistake it for a threatening package. Kronos says it will put
return addresses on future mailings and will continue to rely on
E-mail. Other companies are considering a combined approach.
PennWell Corp., a media, research, and events company in Tulsa,
Okla., may use postcards that direct people to its Web site so
customers won't have to worry about opening mail. - Jennifer
Maselli and Eileen Colkin with George V. Hulme
Read on at
Seamless B-To-B Online Payment Systems Readied
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