The Death of E-Commerce

In this follow up article on WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) and BlueTooth, we look at the demise of e-commerce, as we know it. I`m sure I`ll be inundated with contradictory emails after this, but lets unemotionally look at some of the issues facing e-commerce today and why I predict the often abused acronym will bleed to death in the coming months.

The core essence of PC based e-commerce from a consumer point of view revolves around two issues, namely convenience and security. Convenience is a non-debatable subject when transacting or purchasing merchandise over the Internet. Never before has it been so easy to purchase a book from Amazon.com or CD from Kalahari.net by simply browsing on your PC, submitting your credit card details and waiting for the delivery to your doorstep. No more enduring traffic gridlock, parking hassles, millions of irate shoppers and unfriendly shop assistants. However, customers want the confidence that their business is being conducted securely over the Internet and that confidential data remains exactly that. Confidential.

There has been a number of well-publicized security breaches in the past and if the rising number of Internet transactions is anything to go by, this will increase. The security of electronic commerce sites is therefore of utmost importance, as any hacker from the age of 14 and up may be able to log confidential information such as credit card details and or customer information should the encryption and security measures of the website be insufficient. Remember, a number of companies actually rely on third parties to host, manage or even design their e-commerce solutions. They are blissfully unaware of the fact that they are legally responsible for their customer`s data.

In January 2000, a hacker successfully "stole" and then sold, more than 100 000 credit card numbers from a major on-line music website in the USA. The hacker actually submitted a "super secure" digital CyberCash ICVerify certificate to clear the transaction and to have the funds electronically deposited into a bank account of his choosing! After this fiasco, both the New York Times and MSNBC conducted studies that showed that credit card numbers and data can be accessed using commercially available software programs.

One of the hottest new buzzwords flying around the corporate IT sphere is m-commerce.

Simplistically seen, mobile e-commerce or m-commerce will be the next frontier, where consumers will utilize their mobile phones to conduct business in real-time, rather than web access (with all the security concerns) via a computer. With more than one billion cell phones by 2005, m-commerce will take advantage of mobile GSM, BlueTooth and WAP to personalize the provision of products and services. Included in the services already available in some countries, are:

• Information Services such as sports results and traffic news
• Financial Services, such as shares trading and on-line banking
• Telecomm Services, such as account payments and service changes.

M-commerce however is not without it challenges. Mobile phones have difficult user interfaces and limitations, such as keyboard and screen size, making navigation awkward; not to mention limited battery life. The bottom line remains that m-commerce will be conducted using a cell phone, not a PDA or handheld computer. For those querying why a smart cell phone and not a sexy Palm Pilot, the answer is simply: Communication.

M-commerce enabled phones will be the primary tool of communication for people in 5 years time. Using a device such as a Palm Pilot or PDA just does not cut the grade. It`s expensive and suffers from severe comprises as a communication tool. Existing e-commerce sites will have to be redesigned to cater for more text and less bandwidth zapping graphics with small, more readable pages to fit onto a cell phone. In essence, most companies will be forced to cater for legacy HTML-based webpages (PC access) on one server and m-commerce enabled websites (cell access) on a second server.

Coming back to the issue of security in using WAP cell phones, security functions such as WTLS (Wireless Transport Layer Security) and WIM (Wireless Identification Module), will act as a user-ID for access to the Internet and offer the authentication for m-commerce that e-business on the Internet currently lacks.

In summary, the role of third generation or 3G cell phones are going to change drastically and become much more dominant in the next couple of months. Everything from checking share prices, buying moving tickets or simply sending SMS messages will be conducted directly from your cell phone. So watch the obituary column in your local newspaper. The Belated Death of E-commerce as you know it, is near...