Tooling Up For The Cyber Economy -- New technologies from both mainstream client-server vendors and newcomers to the channel empower VARs to capitalize on e-business
By Lenny Liebmann
April 27, 1998, TechWeb News
As businesses and consumers seek to interact with each other electronically, VARs are searching for the right tools and technologies to build the required solutions. Many tools come from mainstream client-server vendors with established channel programs. Others come from newcomers that have yet to build their reseller base. But since electronic business solutions typically require so much customized integration work, VARs don't have to depend on protected accounts to make a buck. It's more likely that familiarity with key development technologies, rather than authorization for particular product lines, will make margins happen in this initial phase of electronic business implementations.
Middleware is clearly one of those key technologies. As customers attempt to graft Web front ends onto existing business systems for Internet transaction processing, middleware will provide the crucial link between browsers and legacy platforms.
An example is Parian Development Group Inc. in Chicago. Rick Parham, electronic business application development specialist, needed robust, secure middleware to tap into Ace Hardware Inc.'s CICS and IMS transaction-processing systems via Visual Basic scripts running on Ace's Web server. He found the answer in CPE from Braintree, Mass.-based Precise Software Solutions Inc. (www.precisesoft.com). CPE provides agent components that run on both the Web server and the mainframe, exchanging messages over an SNA gateway.
"One reason we chose CPE was because it was relatively easy to implement," says Parham. "But we also tested it and found that the difference in performance between going from the mainframe to a browser and the old 'green screen' was negligible."
That performance is vital for users who want instant connection when they go online with a business partner. Robert Coven, president of Totowa, N.J., development consultancy InterAccess Corp., says that's why electronic business VARs should ramp up on object oriented development right away.
"You're much better off using ActiveX components than doing a bunch of server scripting," Coven says. "Server scripts are harder to debug, and they lower your performance. And if your application is as successful as you hope it will be, you'll need to scale up performance on demand."
According to Coven, object oriented development is essential as electronic business takes customers from a two-tiered client-server architecture to a three-tiered thin client-server back-end database approach. "In client-server development, we put a lot of the business logic on the client," he explains. "But you can't put it on the client in the Web model, so we have to put it on the middle tier."
HTML On Steroids
Betty Harvey, president of Electronic Commerce Connection Inc. (ECC), an integrator in Germantown, Md., offers this tip for VARs who want to build high-end EDI-type solutions for industrial clients: Watch what's happening in the SGML/XML standards development space. Standard generalized markup language (SGML) is a bit like HTML on steroids, allowing far more intelligence to be incorporated into digital documents. Extensible markup language (XML) is a newly developed subset of SGML that is a bit less complex, and therefore easier to implement in a wide range of business applications.
"It may look like a niche market," says Harvey, "but now that Microsoft has announced support for XML, you're going to see it take off." Harvey sees SGML and XML becoming document-based information standards for electronic business. She cites ECC customers such as Lexis/Nexis and Gulfstream, two companies which are moving away from their proprietary formats to interact more easily with business partners over the Net.
Such standardization produces two main benefits. First, it makes it easier to sell information products over the Internet and/or extranets. Second, it allows those documents to be enhanced with hypertext links to e-business sites. Thus a technician equipped with a laptop, an XML manual and an Internet connection could simply click on a specific part and automatically go into that vendor's order entry system. "There's a lot of potential benefit to these industries in streamlining replenishment and inventory management through systems like this," Harvey says.
VARs looking to maintain a performance edge should also monitor new compression technologies that may significantly reduce the overhead of Web graphics. While GIF and JPEG formats may have been fine for the Internet's first decades, growing demand for faster, denser pages are leading to many R&D initiatives, such as AT&T Labs' recently announced DjVu, which decompresses images on-the-fly.
Don't Show Me the Money
Security is another concern of customers implementing electronic business solutions over the Net. That's why so much attention is being paid to firewalls, encryption and authentication. VARs need a thorough understanding of data security technologies such as SET and PGP, as well as filtering and antispoofing techniques employed by leading security vendors such as Redwood City, Calif.-based CheckPoint Software Technologies Ltd. (www.checkpoint.com) and Raptor Systems Inc. (www.raptor.com) in Waltham, Mass.
VARs should also become familiar with the logistics of online payment. Today, such payments are almost entirely done by credit card. Many VARs use solutions that incorporate secure payment technology from CyberCash Inc. (www.cybercash.com) in Reston, Va.
"When customers want real-time transaction processing, we go with CyberCash 90 percent of the time," says Michael Hammons, president of Ham-Bone Web & Multimedia Inc., an electronic business specialist in Woodstock, Ga. "It's an established, recognizable name now, and that creates a positive perception for the customer."
Charles Strader, president of Digital Commerce Laboratories Inc. in Boston, agrees. "CyberCash is easy to set up, and it doesn't charge my customers any transaction fees like other solutions do," he says. "Plus, we've found it to be totally reliable."
However, Hammons typically tries to dissuade customers from verifying payments in real time. "There's really no need to do that if you're not actually fulfilling the order in real time," he explains. "It's much less expensive to do batch processing through the same service you use for your physical orders."
Maureen Lipton, CyberCash's vice president of merchant services, also warns e-business VARs to be ready for major changes in how online purchases are made. Lipton points out that, in the physical world, payments by check outnumber credit card payments six to one. She reasons that, as it becomes more commonplace to do business online, people will want to pay bills in a similar manner.
"Consumers will soon be using electronic 'wallets' that let them pull out whatever kind of payment they want to make-whether it's a credit card, a check or some equivalent of cash," she says. "That's ultimately what will make them feel as comfortable buying online as they do in a regular store."
Tiered Service Levels
Another change Hammons says electronic business VARs should expect is the stratification of the Internet. As he envisions it, the Internet will have at least three "tiers" of service for merchants. At the top tier will be the high-end content sites that can afford the expensive, high-traffic Net "real estate" offered by the major ISPs and cyber-mall aggregators. The second tier will be businesses that, because of their revenue, can't afford those prime locations. The third tier will be home-brewed, mom-and-pop sites.
"If you're going to help your customer do business online, your vision has to be broader than just putting up a site," Hammons says. "You have to be prepared to do real business consulting and to understand the overall culture of the Net."
Yuri Frid, vice president of sales for East Rutherford, N.J.-based ISP 9 Net Avenue Inc., believes VARs should take an even longer-term view of Internet evolution. "Eventually, there's going to be one box, and you're going to use it for news and movies-on-demand and e-mail and shopping on the Internet," Frid says. "The Internet is not going to be about just hosting pages."
Copyright r 1998 CMP Media Inc. |
