Corrections or additions?
This was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on November 11, 1998.
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E-Commerce: Smart Options
Though security at an ATM machine means keeping your
PIN code secret, someday soon the ATM will recognize your thumbprint
or the look of your eyeball. Security on the Internet now means using
a password, but eventually you will be able to use a “smart
card”
now under development at Bellcore.
So says William J. Barr, executive director of information
networking
at Bellcore in Morristown and founder of the Smart Card Forum. Barr
is in charge of Bellcore’s security research, particularly for smart
cards for a consortium of automobile manufacturers. He will discuss
mission critical applications and the role that both Internet
technology
and smart cards will play at an E-Commerce Forum on Monday, November
16, at 4:45 p.m. at the New Brunswick Hyatt. The conference continues
on Tuesday, November 17. For $1,095 reservations for the two-day
conference
and trade show, call 888-WIREDIN or 732-933-9473.
Barr graduated from Allegheny College in 1970 and has a graduate
degree
from the University of Illinois. He joined Bellcore at the time of
the first AT&T divestiture in 1984; he was chief software architect
responsible for developing Information Networking Architecture and
the OSCA architecture. As founder and now president of the Smart Card
Forum, he co-edited “Smart Cards: Seizing Strategic Business
Opportunities,”
published by McGraw Hill, and there will be a book-signing opportunity
at the expo from 5:30 to 6 p.m.
“Bill Gates has indicated for two years that smart cards are a
key to creating a secure environment for E-commerce,” says Barr,
referring to Microsoft’s just-revealed entry into the smart card
field.
Smart cards can be used to store value (as in the recent failed retail
experiment on New York’s Upper West Side) and/or to authenticate and
identify the user (Barr’s purpose). “We will work with our
clients,
an automotive industry action group, to create secure environments
for their E-commerce environment.”
On the marketplace now are smart card readers available
on a floppy disk reader or from a port on the back of a computer,
but the favorite method will probably be what Hewlett Packard has
now — keyboards with smart card slots.
“We certainly think we are the leader in providing a secure
business
environment,” says Bellcore’s Barr. “The Internet technology
was not originally designed for secure high performance environment,
but for easy universal access.”
“Generally we have to create virtual private internets with
performance
characteristics needed for these critical applications, but moving
Just-in-Time order systems from private line EDI networks will save
automakers a billion dollars a year.” Even more important, getting
large companies onto an Internet-based network enables applications
that will have two principal advantages:
1. Strongly tighten supply chains.2. Provide improved customer intimacy between clients andproviders.”Initially these systems are for big players but there arelots of big players. The insurance and banking industries have enoughscope and breadth of applications that this becomes a very desirablething, and we are working with the entertainment industry,” hesays.”For business to business E-commerce, we will use this technologyto authenticate your trading partners. In the consumer world, we seeincreasing applications in home banking and discount stockbrokerages,”says Barr. “Wells Fargo is issuing smart cards to their homecustomers.You don’t need smart cards to buy books on the Internet, but to movemoney requires a little more security.”Having strong security opens up opportunities to provideinfrastructureservices to network participants who need everything from directoryservices and messaging services, to a whole new area — measurementtools, to measure performance in real time.Eight banks, for instance, have announced they will offer digitalcertificates, electronic identifiers for corporate customers thatcan authenticate an individual over an Internet connection.”Insteadof using a Personal Identification Number, you would store a thumbprint on the smart card. If you are trying to insure that the personwho placed the order for a million tons of steel, or who issued acommand to move $100 million from Chase to Citibank, you really wanta strong form of identification.”Smart cards would definitely alleviate the problem referred to inthe New Yorker cartoon, which showed two dogs in front of a computer.One says to the other: “The neat thing about the Internet is thatnobody knows you’re a dog.”– Barbara FoxTop Of PageE-Commerce ForumElectronic commerce has been on the minds and in thestrategies of business leaders for more than two years now, saysAudreyCurtis, development vice president for AT&T Lab’s internetapplicationsservices laboratory. “Network technology is evolving at abreakneckpace to keep up with the demands of businesses craving reliability,scalability, and flexibility from their networks. We’ve all watchedas electronic commerce has become the central strategic thrust ofmodern businesses.”Curtis joins Barr in the E-Commerce Forum that is so loaded withnotablesthat six speakers daily are labeled keynoters. On Monday Curtis willdiscuss “Networked Commerce: E-Commerce for Today’sEnterprises.””We will explore the issues facing businesses as they usenetworkingtechnology to improve their reach to their customers and expand theirenterprises,” she says.On Sunday, November 15, before the forum opens, Mike Baker ofthe Electronic Commerce Resource Center at the University of Scrantonwill teach two half-day workshops on Electronic Data Interchange.Cost: $175. Scranton’s ERC is one of 16 in the country, and it hasa $2 million contract to evangelize the territory from Maine toPennsylvaniato help small and medium-sized businesses get “electronic commercecapable” and do business with the federal government.Monday’s topics include “The Global Politics of ElectronicCommerce,”by James A. R. Johnson of Global Information InfrastructureCommission. “The Bill is Your Brand: Don’t Let Your Customer GetDisconnected Paying Your Bill on the Internet,” is the topic forRichard K. Crone of CyberCash Inc. Alex Bangash andKarenPeterson of Lucent Technologies, plus Lisa Henriott ofManugisticsGroup will address “The Vision of Supply Chain Management,”along with representatives from i@, SAP, and Oracle.Victor Nappe will present an Apple Computer case study, andIrfan Ahmed of Withum Smith & Brown will discuss securityissues.Baker weighs in on Monday with “E-Commerce and Supply ChainManagementCase Studies: Harley Davidson and the Defense Logistics Agency.”On Tuesday, November 17, “Information Imperative,” RichardL. Moore, global vice president of Lucent Direct, will speak on”The Information Imperative.” Paul Christy, deputydirectorof the commerce department, STAT-USA. will offer an update on theadministration’s E-commerce initiative.Also “Securing Electronic Commerce,” by Warwick Fordof Advanced Technology VeriSign Inc.; “Intellectual Property andE-Commerce: What You Should Know About the Law,” by PamelaL. Banner of Banner, Witkoff Ltd.; “Electronic Commerce andIts Effects on the Publishing Industry,” by Mimi Jett ofInteractive Composition Corporation and Robert S. Sutor,manager,Interactive Scientific Publishing, IBM.”Securing a Competitive Advantage with Electronic Payments,”is the topic for Roger Trout of Sterling Commerce. SteveVardy of Snickelways Interactive will discuss “The Buy Button:Designing for E-Commerce,” and Ron Parsons of StrategiesPortfolio Commerce Net will talk about standards in E-Commerce.Top Of PageProfits in SkyListen up to Robert M. Worsley if you want tosucceed in electronic commerce. He founded the spectacularlysuccessful”catalog in the sky” Skymall Inc., the Phoenix, Arizona-basedcatalog you find in your seat when you fly almost any airline(602-254-9777;https://www.skymall.com). He speaks at the E-Commerce forumon Monday and Tuesday, November 16 and 17, at the New Brunswick Hyatt.(See story above).”I hope to drive home that some very key technology decisionshave been made in our business,” says Worsley, “and that in thenext 12 to 24 months, every business will have to ask themselves threequestions:”1. Are we even going to play on the Internet? Your answercan certainly be no, he says. “You could say I am going to waitand maybe get involved in a year or two.” But if your answer is yes,ask:2. Are we going to integrate our web activities and our websystems with our legacy systems?3. Or shall we build an Internet infrastructure and systemand bag the legacy systems.Saying yes to Question 2, Worsley says, is like putting cementon your feet while you do a “value-waste activity.” You willbe spending lots of money over the next 12 to 18 months to integrateyour old systems and become Y2K compliant.”We spent over $1.5 million converting our entire system to awebcentric system,” says Worsley. He abandoned a clientserversystem with a Sybase Powerbuilder application. “Instead of tryingto make the Internet talk to that one, we said, `Let’s have theInternettalk to the Internet.'”This week Skymall operators are taking orders at the call center andkeying right into the Internet. Home shoppers can key into the sameInternet and, as with UPS and FedEx, they will be able to track theirshipments.To overcome the Internet’s proverbial slowness, Skymall uses anintranetfor its telemarketers, but the same engine, Microsoft Siteserver 3.0,runs both the intranet and the Internet. Servers are colocated atan outside backup vendor, Global Frontier, in Phoenix.Worsley claims his firm is the first catalog company to do this andindeed it was the first to contact Microsoft for that purpose. Mostcatalog companies still are thinking of the Internet as a potentialfocus. Very few have said “Everything we do is webcentric.”Is he making money? Yes, though profits are way down because oftechnologyoutlays. The business plan is for the catalog companies to sacrificetheir margins in order to snag airline customer information. “Theywant those customers’ names to market to them later,” saysWorsley,”and they are willing to let us make the money on this sale. Itis a more cost effective way to get catalog shopping dollars, becausewhat we pay the airlines (7.5 percent commission on sales) is cheaperthan what the postal service is paid.”To place items in his catalog costs $5,000 per month for a quarterpage for all airlines, and customized catalogs for different nationalairlines are available. Pass-along readership is significant. From20 to 30 customers see each copy, and there is a three to four percentresponse rate per copy, even though only one in 800 passengersactuallyplaces an order.Though Worsley negotiates exclusive coverage with the airlines,competitioncomes from in-flight magazines and duty-free shopping on internationalflights. He hosts an annual bash in Phoenix for the airlinespromotionsmanagers. “We bring in the people we work with and we treat themreally good for three days,” says Worsley.The son of a CPA, Worsley is a Mormon; he was one of seven children,and he and his wife have six children. After Brigham Young, Classof ’80, he worked as a CPA for Price Waterhouse until he chanced upona lackluster version of an airline catalog. Now he partners with thecompany that produced that catalog. “We took a two-cent perpassengerbusiness and turned it into 12 cents.”The company went public in December, 1996 (Nasdaq: SKYM) but the stockplummeted because it “missed its numbers.” He expects thestock to recover soon; it is trading at 10 times earnings.Of 250 employees, 200 are telemarketers, and he has weekly breakfastswith them, 10 at a time. “As I look into the eyes of these people,mostly women, I see teenage moms with one or two children, nevermarried,trying to make something out of their life with these children. Iwant to create a situation where they can come and learn the job andactually work from home and telecommute, to make the call center auniversity where they graduate to home. If you have a quiet room,you can be just as friendly as in a big call center. I have a workforce I would like to assist in their difficult jobs of being parents.In our church, families are everything.”Top Of PageTurning Browsers Into BuyersStudies show that out of every 100 customers who starta shopping basket online, only two-thirds of them complete the sale.Research also shows that people want more human contact. Conclusion:better customer service is needed to turn browsers into buyers.TechnologyNew Jersey will address this in a seminar on electronic commerce onTuesday, November 17, at 8 a.m. at the Hyatt. Cost: $30. Call609-419-4444.Kate Doyle, director of marketing communications of BusinessEvolution, 305 College Road, will be talking about “Web CustomerService: The Missing Link in E-Commerce Equations.” She willdiscussthe four channels — E-mail, live messaging, chat, and telephonecall back — companies are using to communicate with customersand also how Business Evolution teamed up with IBM to provide a totalcustomer solution. Formerly an analyst at Jupiter Communications,a New York research firm, Doyle has written research reports aboutdeveloping business models on the Internet.”Electronic Commerce — Why Start Now?” will be the topiccovered by Mike Jefferson, IBM’s northeastern E-Commerce salesmanager. The electronic commerce market is predicted to be over $300billion shortly after the turn of the century.Future workshops will be on first and third Tuesdays and Thursdays.Compaq and Trintech will discuss security on Tuesday, December 1,and Grace Polhemus, director of Technology New Jersey, hopesto present a holiday-related E-commerce business on Thursday, December15. In the new year the seminars will get down to the nitty-grittyof telecommunications technology, all you ever wanted to know (ormore) about such things as ADSL and ATM: Asymmetric Digital SubscriberLoops and Asynchronous Transfer Mode.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
