E Commerce, A review on Project Characteristics

“Business drives Technology
Technology enables Business”

Electronic Commerce, more widely known as E Commerce is digitally enabled commercial transaction. With the growth of Internet this new form of trade has grown by leaps n bounds. A wide variety of commerce is conducted in this way, spurring and drawing on innovations in electronic fund transfer, Internet marketing, EDI, inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems.

Technology is not a panacea! E Commerce Project Characteristics requires a lot of innovative thinking to make it a success.

The steps involved clearly reveals the fact.

1. Requirement Analysis :- Analyze the requirement of the site by conducting feasibility study. Feasibility study can be done in three different ways,
   

   
   

   a) Technical : Whether I have the technical expertise to develop the site or the organization in need of the e commerce website can provide the technical infrastructure or not.
   

   
   

   b) Economic : The fund needed to develop the site as well as to maintain it can be provided by the organization or not.
   

   
   

   c) Usability : Whether it is feasible to build a site for the proposed functional area or whether the users will be able to use it or not. Eg., An E commerce site in a remote area where most of the population is not computer literate.
   


2. Problem Identification :- We need to perform the “as-is” system study. The process that is going to get automated with the help of E Commerce must be done presently manually or with the help of some other existing older automation. We need to identify the problems with the existing system.
   


3. Requirement Study :- Requirements can be of two different types.
   

   
   

   a) Functional : What are the features required in the e commerce site so that it will become more user friendly. This can be done by collecting inputs from various departments.
   

   
   

   b) Non functional : This includes many things including performance, capacity , reusability , security , scalability, availability etc. Eg, If the availability of the ecommerce site is 24x7x365 then we need to design it in such a way so that necessary upgrades can be performed without shutting the execution of the site. It is applicable for both hardware and software.
   

   
   

   Another example is regarding the scalability issue. If today the hits to the ecommerce site is in hundreds it is not that the value will remain constant. It can go upto thousands and lakhs and crores. So we need to design it in such a way that it can accommodate any number of hits at any point of time. Like, if the number of hits are much higher then main topics will be displayed i.e. a lightweight version of the page will be displayed. This will make the access faster in congested traffic.
   


4. Design : - when we are designing a system we need to identify which portions of the project can be conducted in house, which portions can be conducted by subcontract and which portion to be outsourced.
   


5. Implementation :- It includes coding for the site along with benchmarking as well as maintenance. Site is compared with those of competitors in terms of response speed, quality of layout, and design in the process of benchmarking.
   


6. Testing :-
   

   
   

   a) Unit testing: testing the site’s program modules one at a time.
   

   
   

   b) System testing: involves testing the site as a whole , in a way the typical user will in using the site.
   

   
   

   c) Acceptance testing : Verifies that the business objectives of the system as originally conceived are in fact working.
   

Contemporary electronic commerce involves everything from ordering "digital" content for immediate online consumption, to ordering conventional goods and services, to "meta" services to facilitate other types of electronic commerce.

E Commerce has opened a new horizon and means of trading which is really a trendsetter of this cyber age.

Contrubuted By:
Rik Das
(Globsyn Business School)

Boosting the Business with Information Technology

“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way.” - Dale Carnegie

Information Technology has shown this different way and inspired the business growth and has become explicitly interwoven with strategic business to innovate new lanes of success stories. A robust IT infrastructure can make positive and quantifiable differences in business performances. Higher IT capability is directly proportional to higher revenue growth. Productive employees are key determinant of achieving superior productivity. IT fuels up the efficiency and productivity of the employees as well as the managers which leads to 23 percent higher revenue per employee than its peers. A positive role that Information Technology plays in enterprise growth is to enable enterprises to connect to new markets and respond to changes in the market faster. Buyer- set pricing and Auction-set prices with the help of online auctions and online seller bidding respectively lead to Cost Leadership by providing Lowest price guarantee by online price adjustment. Priceline.com, EBay.com are facilitating this process quite effectively. Increase in market share is influenced by online customer design , Customer online shipment tracking and E-Commerce.

Innovative Strategic Information Systems like online discount stock trading, package and flight management and online full service customer systems provided by Federal Express or Amazon.com has rewarded them with Market Leadership. The global satellite network Merchandise ordering system in Wall – Mart has increased the global market for the organization. Alliances like Airborne Express/ Rentrak Corp. has increased their market share by online inventory management/ shipment tracking.

Effective implementation of Information Technology has led to remarkable decline in the cost of synchronization that initiates concentrated business structure. Flexibility of Information Technology will enable to respond to the competitive forces by being able to respond to any specific information or communication requirement thus providing effective management of interdependence.

Contributed By:
Rik Das
Lecturer, IS
(Globsyn Business School)

THE GOOGLE PHONE COUNTDOWN

"Communication works for those who work at it" - - John Powell

The world is waiting to visualize whether Google is going to be an immediate game changer with their new and versatile introduction, the Google Phone. They are really working hard on this new edition of mobile communication and has been lobbying the U.S. government for changes in wireless policy.

Taiwanese manufacturer HTC is going to make the phone which is named Dream. It is available exclusively in the T- Mobile network in UK. Google’s new operating system Android is going to run in the handset. Android is a Linux based operating system for mobile devices which allows developers to write managed codes in java like language that uses Google developed java libraries.

The phone will be equipped with Global Positioning Technology and will be capable of running Google’s range of Web applications such as its email service Gmail, productivity suite Google Docs and mapping service Google Maps and last but not the least, Google Chrome, the revolutionary web browser by Google.

Google is already one of the leaders in advertising and search engine. Its success story may be going to get replicated with the G phone. HTC has built a solid reputation for the quality and inventiveness of its handsets., and it is eventually the maker of the Google phone.

Expectations and excitement is creeping up with each clock tick as the launching time for this new endeavor of Google , the G Phone is approaching. The G phone may rewrite the rules and is expected to be the one to change the face of the wireless industry.

Contributed by :
Rik Das
Lecturer - IS
(Globsyn Business School)

Google Chrome, a Google initiative

“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller , you’re part of the road.”
- Stewart Brand

Our minds are obsessed with the three W’s . The World Wide Web, the defacto standard of the cyber age civilization. We don’t even think of life under the blue without the Internet.
The software application that enables us to display and interact with the text, graphics, videos images in the web page is known as the web browser.

The big players in browsers are Internet Explorer, Konqueror, Opera, Mozilla Firefox and so on.
The most recent addition to these names is Google CHROME.

Much ink and many electrons have been spilled over the fact that its advanced features has made it an icon in the crowd. It is an open source web browser. Stability, speed and security issues has been much improved compared to any other browser.

Is it yet another web browser? Not really the way we have thought about Web browsers before. Most web browsers send HTTP messages to far-off Web servers, which respond with HTML pages. But with Chrome things are quite different. When an address is typed that doesn’t exist , Chrome will send it to Google for help finding the right address. The standard homepage keeps link to most visited sites and recent bookmarks.

We can start right from the point we have left off before shutdown. Chrome can be customized as which page to be opened everytime a program is launched. Isn’t its handy for those who use numerous pages ??

The URL name can be typed on the whole, e.g. http://www.globsyn.com/ to visit the site directly or only “globsyn” can be typed to go for a search. This is indeed a versatile feature.

At the top right corner functions like print, save, cut, copy, paste etc , all can be found under a pull down menu at the top right or else just at the right click of the mouse. Its just all about to browsing a real enjoyment.

In incognito mode sites are kept off the browsing history list which allows the privacy while cruising the Web.

If one becomes bore with the same designated homepage then several shortcuts can be created on the desktop. With every start up click anyone and the browser opens it up for you. Its something really refreshing all through.
The users get continuous updates and about the phising and malware. These warnings restrict them to visit harmful sites. Other users can also get the facility through a public API called “Google Safe Browsing API”. Google Chrome wont let one bad site to crash the entire web browser.

“Sandbox” mechanism has been introduced in Google CHROME. This security mechanism safely runs programs and is often used to run untested codes or programs from unverified third party. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. This mechanism prevents malware from installing itself. The V8 JavaScript engine has features which has made it twice as fast than other popular browsers.

So the speed has become a striking factor of Google CHROME.

CHROME has implemented the multithreaded browser with a multiprocessing

architecture concept. The stability issues are taken care of very nicely. CHROME has taken the focus of World Wide Web with a lots of new features and facilities to make the Internet more user friendly and has touched the hearts of millions.

As of now, Chrome is a beta version with significant security problems yet to be addressed. By definition, it's not ready -- that's what beta means. Bugs and security holes will be fixed. But Chrome's basic business model will remain same.

Contributed by:
Rik Das, Lecturer, IS
(Globsyn Business School)

Google Chrome

Google recently launched its much awaited Browser Solution called "CHROME"; A report suggested that with in 4 days of it launching it captured close to 1% of the market share. Internet Explorer still continues to lead the market with close to 72% Market Share.

A lot people are keen to figure out how Chrome stands out vis a vis its competitors. Here is a Video which helps answer some of those questions.


Romit Dasgupta
Director - Technology
Globsyn Group

note: if the video does not load at first, keep re loading till it does.

SOA is the latest buzz-acronym for "Service-Oriented Architecture."

What is SOA?

SOA is not a technology or something you install. It is a concept, or rather an approach to modelling your system, and one that is different from the standard client/server model you may be used to. As opposed to large, proprietary applications that do everything, SOA is a design meant to try to integrate numerous and diverse software applications with common interfaces, in the name of code reuse/maintainability, and adaptibility. The notion of using a group of independent applications to accomplish a shared task is also sometimes referred to as grid computing.Everyone knows that "Web Services" are one of the hottest things lately. An SOA is essentially a collection of such services, communicating with one another, generally through XML. (Of course I am over-simplifying things: SOA can involve any kind of self-contained service communicating in any way.)SOA is not specific to any technology, indeed every "family" of technologies has its own SOA solution, and usually you can mix-and-match your own. However, open-source XML-based technologies such as BPEL, SOAP and WSDL are very commonly used.

By,

S.S.Baidya

Globsyn Business School

The future of Social Networking – V 3.0

Several studies have shown, that the concept of social networks has existed for several decades. The concept stems from the fact, that people are social beings, and their ability to work in social groups to create value, is their biggest asset. In 1954, J. A. Barnes popularized the term by using it to denote systematic pattern between two nodes. In the early 1990’s Internet was born, and that gave the concept of Social Networks a whole new definition.

Social Networking 1.0, focused mostly on establishing virtual connections between people , creating “Social Graphs”. Last few years have seen an emergence of Social Networking 2.0, where the priority has shifted from Connections between people to Content. We have seen the emergence of rich media sharing, RSS feeds, digital whiteboards, custom API’s, podcasts etc. The future, Social Networking 3.0 however, would see social networking being used as a technology (SNT) rather than a product or a service.

The future of Social Networks would see custom tools (API’s) being built for specific Interest group Networks. For example, a Business Networking Portal like Konnects.com might have a Business Lead Generation Tool, where as a Shelfari.com which is a social network for Book lovers, might see a tool to track authors and their recent releases.

Having said that, there are a few tools, which would form the basis for all Social Networks of tomorrow. Here are few TRENDS for Social Networks of tomorrow:

a) Smart Profile (Social or Professional) – Profiles form the introduction of individuals on all networks. Currently none of the social networking sites allow individuals to export their profiles for other networks. In the future, there might be opportunities to export and import profiles between networks.

b) Dynamic Buddy list (Social or Professional) – Segmented buddy lists would also get created. They would be divided in two broad areas, first Social Buddies, second Professional Buddies. Once again these could be imported or exported.

c) Real Time Collaborations – TEXT/VOIP/VIDEO based collaboration tools.

d) Integration with mobile devices – This would be a must for social networks of tomorrow simply because a user spends more time with a mobile device than a laptop or a PC. Also the reach is much higher (in some markets)

e) Ability to create niche stand alone networks – both in the professional and social front. Today, there are very few companies which are offering that. (Ning.com offers that for Social Space where as Konnects.com offers that for the professional space)

f) Custom API’s & Widgets – custom API’s - widgets would play a very important role in dressing up a social network of tomorrow. Companies like Facebook and Google (Open Social) have already taken a lead in this area.

g) Media Sharing & Interaction – Real Time Sharing of Rich and Lean media with interaction tools would also dominate the market. Specially in the area of Learning and Education.

By:
Romit Dasgupta
(Director, Globsyn Group)