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You can add or delete cartridges from the Web Application Server. The cartridges accept a specific type of input, such as credit card information, and send it to an Oracle database or another cartridge. Many times, cartridges communicate with other cartridges. For instance, a VeriFone cartridge might send its output to a specific purchase order cartridge used to generate customer purchase orders. The purchase order cartridge, in turn , sends its output to a shipping order cartridge, which produces a shipping order so you can deliver what the customer purchases.

The Future of Electronic Commerce with the NC

One of the reasons for the Internet Commerce Server is the expected proliferation of network computers (NC). Network computers are modeled after telephones in that they simply access a larger network and perform the basic tasks of moving data back and forth across a network. With a telephone, the data are simply sounds, but in a generalized network computer architecture, the data can be anything.

Oracle envisions the twenty-first century family owning a small NC computer, maybe one that can plug into a television set. They dial in to the grocery market's local server, browse the " aisles " using video, and purchase their groceries using electronic commerce cartridges such as VeriFone. The family can use the NC to browse through thousands of markets and items, determine availability, and order on the spot. (See Figure 10.2.)

Figure 10.2.
"Shop until you drop,"
the future cybershoppe
using standard http
protocols.

This networked economy has many economic advantages that I will address later in this chapter; Oracle and other vendors believe that a simpler network computer is the most cost-effective and efficient way to achieve this future. Today's PC with a standard modem, software, and CPU is a more expensive workhorse for this task of engaging in commerce over larger networks ”a task it was never designed to do in the first place.

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Is Electronic Commerce a Solution for My Business?

The next question you should ask as you read this chapter is "Will electronic commerce work for me?" At this time, most households in the United States, not to mention the world, do not have a computer. Oracle's NC vision is only a vision. I don't own one, and you probably don't own one either. On the other hand, electronic commerce has already made millions for businesses and individuals. Take a look at www.amazon.com, the online book ordering company. With stakes this high, it is important to evaluate whether electronic commerce is right for you.

Factors That Make Electronic Commerce Profitable

Many factors contribute to the success and profitability of electronic commerce. The following list provides a great deal of detail on how to use the Internet to become more profitable:

• Your customers or potential customers have the necessary computers and software.
  You must determine whether your existing customer base is willing and able to do business on the Web. For example, it probably isn't a good idea to automate the food stamp program as an electronic commerce application; most food stamp recipients don't own computers. On the other hand, if you sell computer monitors , obviously your audience owns a computer. In the worlds of banking, consumer goods, or entertainment, it is wise to determine what percentage of your market share is already Web enabled.
  If you engage in business-to-business electronic commerce, of course the businesses have computers. Assume that you sell auto parts to the "Big Three," and you know that their purchasing departments use only mainframes and EDI. You should refrain from electronic commerce until you want to expand your auto- parts sales to the general public.
  
• Faster, cheaper transactions are a result of customer "self-service" purchases. When your customer base buys directly over the Internet, you can eliminate the middleman. For example, if you weave custom rugs, you can sell directly over the Internet from your warehouse and not send as many of your rugs to different retail stores. This move increases your profit margin and your visibility in the market and eliminates the labor and business structures needed to support the retail stores and their buyers .
  
• Electronic commerce provides free advertising and reaches a large potential customer market.
  An electronic commerce Web site is not limited geographically . You can sell your rugs to anyone in the world, provided his government lets him access the Internet. Countries that don't probably aren't strong candidates for rug sales anyway, and delivery and payment systems might also be questionable.

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• In terms of advertising, if your Web page is fancier and easier to use than your largest competitor's site, you gain in image for a fraction of the investment that they spend on radio, newspaper, and television advertisements. I don't suggest that the potential electronic commerce business should pull other forms of advertising. I only point out that some free Internet advertising is based only on registering your Web site with a few search engines.
  

• A Web site provides your company with richer, more context-sensitive advertising.
  When I walk into a huge discount store, none of the employees know that I like to purchase discount CDs of dinosaur rock bands. As a customer at a virtual discount store, using Oracle's Internet Commerce Server, I can receive dynamic Web pages with frames containing special advertisements that are relevant to my customer profile. On my Web page, I might see a discount classic-rock sale of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer CDs, whereas another shopper might see a discount on beer or telescopes.
  With electronic commerce, you can tailor Web pages to the profiles you retrieve from the Oracle Universal Server. You can also use this information to send e-mail notices whenever a music company sells discount CDs or a beer warehouse clears its overstock of light beer. With today's newspaper advertisements, you need to thumb through pages of other people's interests to find the discounts you want. With electronic commerce, each person is directed toward his or her interests based on past buying patterns.
• Electronic commerce means 24/7 self-service.
  I doubt that many rug companies in Cleveland are open on Friday morning at 2:00 a.m. (If they are, I don't want to know what they are doing.) With electronic commerce, a customer anywhere in the world, at any time, such as a hotel manager in Hawaii at 8 p.m. on Friday, can plug into your inventory and order a new rug for his banquet hall.
• Internet Electronic Commerce has lower costs than traditional EDI.
  If you use EDI to give your customers a way to send thousands of orders through a maze of mainframe systems, electronic commerce over the Web with some of the new EDI cartridges is probably a cheaper way to communicate with your customers. The Internet entry costs are cheaper than those of a private VAN network or service.
  If you have never used EDI because of the cost, you can now consider electronic commerce. It is a cheaper way for businesses to communicate with businesses, and you can use it to send orders across a network quickly. Using traditional methods , a purchaser at your customer might type different UPC numbers of auto parts and their quantities for hours, just because the information is printed and either faxed or ordered over the phone. Your clerks re-enter the same information. With electronic commerce and sharing EDI cartridges between businesses, the information is entered only once, which decreases the chance of error and saves time.

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