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To: Bill Harmond who wrote (1879)	10/4/2000 10:26:45 AM
From: Sonny Blue	Respond to of 57684

The daily Elliott wave count shows that we should bottom on Friday (not today or tomorrow as many have hoped). It coincides with the release of ECRI's US Inflation Watch for October (being watched very closely by the Fed): businesscycle.com My 2 cents!

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (1879)	10/4/2000 5:18:37 PM
From: Jan Crawley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 57684

Good MU news for you!

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (1879)	10/4/2000 6:00:25 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

Report: E-Commerce Stalling in UK By Sylvia Dennis, Newsbytes Special to the NewsFactor Network October 4, 2000 Many UK organizations have yet to wake up and realize the potential of e-commerce, according to a new report. The study, which was sponsored by Mercury Interactive and carried out by Benchmark Research, said that some enterprises may be unaware of the economics, particularly the costs of failures. Minimal Performance Testing The report, the second in a series of annual studies, discovered that only a quarter of managers responsible for e-business applications were using an automated testing solution to ensure the highest level of performance from Web sites and Internet operations. A similar number was not familiar with the concept and its benefits, even when prompted. Of those not using automated testing, 61 percent also said they do not plan to do so in the future, with 11 percent saying that they saw no value in an investment in testing. In addition, of the sample interviewed, 72 percent said they had e-commerce or e-business applications. The remainder said that these were planned for the future. Interestingly, however, 64 percent then said their Internet sites were simply for information and only half could, or were planning to take orders online. Benchmark Research carried out its research this summer, drawing responses from more than 200 UK organizations, each of which had more than 200 employees. The companies surveyed were drawn from mainstream business sectors including retail, manufacturing, finance, telecom and utilities. Stalled Leadership? Kevin Francis, Mercury Interactive's European field market manager, said that the results of the survey were not impressive for a country with the declared aim of becoming an e-business leader. "Thorough testing is essential to achieve the reliability and fast response that is critical to increase the chances of making business over the Internet a success," he said. Francis argued that automated testing is vital, because when e-business sites grow more sophisticated to satisfy users' demands, the testing requirement soon outstrips the limited capabilities of manual methods. As a result, he said, automated solutions are now essential to avoid sites being presented to customers with flaws that make them a business liability rather than a profitable asset. Wireless Wars The report also looked at how UK organizations are coping with wireless e-commerce issues. Fourteen percent of those companies whose staff were interviewed said they were already up and running with their wireless e-commerce applications, while a another 13 percent said they were planning to move into the area. The research also found that wireless application protocol (WAP) appears to be the most popular m-commerce technology, with 45 percent of respondents planning or currently developing WAP systems. Eleven percent of respondents, however, said they were looking to i-Mode, the Japanese m-commerce technology, as their preferred technology, and 19 percent suggested they will use cHTML (be it on an i-mode platform or not). Francis said that whatever technology is used, automated testing and best-practice risk management is even more important when people access the Internet via their mobile. "Mobile users expect very high levels of convenience and an extremely rapid response. They will soon lose patience with sites that are slow or unreliable because they fail to perform under load," he said. Guy Washer, Benchmark Research's managing director, meanwhile, said that the results indicate that e-commerce applications in the UK are yet immature. "Many current e-Business sites are relatively simple," he said. "The low proportion of budget spent on Web development and testing also suggests that the importance of ensuring good performance under all conditions is not fully understood." ecommercetimes.com