Business-to-Business E-Commerce
Linking Corporate Processes via the Web
By Michael Carroll
While the returns for business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce over the Web have been largely disappointing (with some notable exceptions like Amazon.com), business-to-business (B2B) returns are beginning to show considerably more promise. This is probably because B2B e-commerce is not new. Businesses had been quietly conducting e-commerce for decades before the Internet became a popular communications infrastructure. Before the Net, they connected their mainframes and minis via direct dial-up or proprietary third-party value-added networks (VANs). However, because of the global reach of the Net, Internet B2B e-commerce is now all the rage.
In this article we'll survey some of the emerging application-integration frameworks for B2B e-commerce over the Internet. From general application server to specific e-commerce tools, we'll try to give you a sense of the range of frameworks cropping in support of this fast-growing application area. We'll avoid playing favorites or comparing these systems. Each tool offers a unique approach and can't really be directly compared to the others. Although they have some common features, each tool attempts to attack inter-enterprise integration and commerce in a slightly different way. Two of the tools we'll examine, NetDynamics Enterprise Network Application Platform and CrossRoute Alliance, are not -- strictly speaking -- e-commerce tools at all. However, they provide natural frameworks for e-commerce integration.
We should point out that Internet B2B e-commerce goes beyond the World Wide Web.
