Modern Means of Communication and Electronic Commerce

Connecting many computer networks and using common addressing system, the Internet has been growing rapidly since its creation in 1983, radio, telephone and cable television wires, satellites being used to deliver Internet services. By the mid-1990s the Internet linked millions of com­puters throughout the world and it is sure to be the most important com­mercial and popular means of communication nowadays. The original uses of the Internet were electronic mail, file transfer, bulletin boards and remote computer access. Having expanded considerably during the 1990s, the World Wide Web enables users easily to examine the Internet sites and now it is likely to have become the leading informational service of the Internet.

The first electronic transactions are supposed to have been handled in the 1950s due to telex, radio-teletype and telephone. In the following decades various industries elaborated upon the system of electronic data interchange before a simple and independent of any particular machine standard was created. Since the mid-1990s electronic commerce has become one of the most rapidly growing retail sectors involving the use of computer telecommunication networks for maintaining business relationships and selling information, services and commodities. Although e-commerce usually refers only to the trading of goods and services over the Internet, it actually includes broader economic activity such as business-to-consumer and business-to-business commerce as well as internal organizational transactions that support these activities.

A large part of e-commerce was transferred to the Internet after the first graphical "browser" software for the access to the World Wide Web had been introduced in 1993 and when the number of companies and individuals using "on-line" had greatly increased. In some fields new Internet retailers such as the Amazon bookseller company seem to have grown up overnight and begun successfully competing with traditional retailers. Most of recently established companies are known to include the electronic commerce in their business as well. For example, the Intel. Corporation sold almost half of its chips in the annual computer sales directly through its Web site in 1999 and is planning to move all of its sales to the Web by the end of 2000.

The further development of secure electronic transfer of sensitive information*, such as credit card numbers and electronic funds transfer orders, is certainly to be essential to the continued growth of e-commerce. It is often necessary to ensure the encrypting of Web purchase forms, many individuals also usually encrypting their e-mail.

Among other innovations that have contributed to the growth of e-commerce are electronic directories and search systems for finding information on the Web; software agents that act autonomously to allocate goods and ser­vices; and special identifying services over the Internet. These intermediary services facilitate the sale of goods (actually delivering the goods in case of information), the rendering of services such as banking, ticket reservations, and stock market transactions, and even the delivery of remote education and entertainment. Specialists consider electronic auction sales and markets to be other rapidly developing parts of e-commerce. The former offer a large variety of goods from computers and electronics to books, recordings, auto­mobiles and real estate, while the latter allow a buyer to choose offers from many sellers. It is interesting that from its establishing in 1995, the world's largest on-line open auction site, eBay, grew to more than 5 million members by 1999.

Businesses often develop private intranets for sharing information and collaborating within the company, these networks usually being isolated from the surrounding Internet by special computer-security systems. Businesses also often rely on extranets which are extensions** of a company's intranet. Such extranets allow portions of company's internal network to be accessible to collaborating businesses, access to the ones being generally restricted through passwords.

One should mention some more important benefits of e-commerce. Due to its development the role of geographic distance in forming business relationships is being reduced. If you were interested in the beginning of a retail business, it would be relatively inexpensive to start a retail Web site. Some traditional businesses are being replaced by their electronic equivalents or are being made entirely useless. Having published fare information and enabled ticketing directly over the Internet, airlines have greatly decreased the role of traditional agencies. Prices of commodity products are generally lower on the Web and it results not only from the lower costs of doing electronic business but also from the ease of comparison shopping in cyberspace. A new form of collaboration known as a virtual company is flourishing now. This type of company is actually a network of firms, each performing some of the processes needed to manufacture a product or deliver a service.

Пояснения к тексту:

* sensitive information – cекретные сведения, засекреченная информация

** extension – дополнение