Online retailers that think they are in the retail business could be headed for trouble. According to Tom Hennings, president and CEO of OrderFusion, a US-based e-commerce software vendor, business-to-consumer (B2C) selling via the Web has more in common with direct and catalogue sales than with true retailing.
Venture capitalists still have plenty of money to invest in new technology companies, but they're getting a whole lot pickier about what sort of ventures they'll invest in and what they expect in return. Even with the recent stock market gyrations, venture capitalists are on the lookout for new investment opportunities. Some investors, however, are reserving their capital for jackpot ventures that might become the next Cisco Systems Inc. or Amazon.com Inc., promising the highest potential returns in the least amount of time.
Online retailers that think they are in the retail business could be headed for trouble. Business-to-consumer selling via the Web, according to Tom Hennings, president and CEO of OrderFusion, an e-commerce software vendor in San Diego, has more in common with direct and catalog sales than with true retailing.
There is no longer a choice about exposing at least part of your business on the Internet. However, protecting your company from the associated business risks is about much more than basic security technology.
There is no longer a choice about exposing at least part of your business on the Internet. However, protecting your company from the associated business risks is about much more than basic security technology.
Today's CTO, perhaps more than any other top executive, needs a keen sense of balance. The emerging role comes with a unique mission to drive new business opportunities through the creative use of technology. This means finding the right balance between the Internet's rewards and business risks.
If network managers got stock options every time they heard the words "seamless interoperability," they could all retire. Yet for most, NOS interoperability is not the problem that it might have become, thanks to the widespread adoption of Internet protocols and, to a lesser extent, the ODBC standard. Instead, the pain of running a mixed network is in building and keeping the IT staff to support it.
Vignette will retire the successful Story Server brand and replace it with the V/5 eBusiness Platform in an effort to break away from image publishing and content management.
Business-to-business Web-based trading exchanges need more than a great Web presence to be successful; they need buyers. Hardly a day goes by that another independent trading exchange is not announced for a particular vertical market, and for these new exchanges the business of getting business is no trivial matter.
Two years ago, Frank Campagnoni left a promising e-commerce job at AT&T Corp. to take the CTO position at GEIS (General Electric Information Systems).
Vignette Corp. will retire the successful Story Server brand and replace it with the V/5 eBusiness Platform.
When San Francisco cookware vendor Williams-Sonoma Inc. got e-religion last year, Sean McHugh, the new manager of e-business, had a major sales job on his hands.
Name/Affiliation: David Flaxman, managing director of e-technology integration at AnswerThink Consulting Group
It is a sign of the times when a button-down corporation such as General Electric Corp. hires the likes of John Perry Barlow to give the closing keynote speech at a premier technology conference, the General Electric Information Systems EC-Forum.
Not long ago Jaime Lerner was sitting with Joe Cha in Joe's kitchen, trying desperately to come up with a name for the business the two had just started.