-TR Anand, GM, IBM Global Services India. height="83" align="right">

Today e-business and IBM

are synonymous and, therefore, it is hardly surprising for the company to participate in

technical user groups around the world and contribute to the discussions which shape the

future of emerging standards. Here, DATAQUEST makes an attempt to understand what is

happening in the world of standards and where is it at this point in time. Speaking to

DATAQUEST is TR Anand, GM, IBM Global Services, India. Responsible for Cross Industry and

E-business solutions, he leads the team responsible for identifying and bringing to market

the solutions covering e-business (intranet/extranet solutions, ecommerce, security and

e-business advisory services), business intelligence and customer relationship solutions.

Excerpts:

Acronyms are popping all around ecommerce. For instance, we have OBI, Open EDI, Web
EDI, SET, SSL and half a dozen others. Are they standards? If yes, what are the

implication of having so many standards?




First, of the acronyms mentioned only SET and SSL are standards. The rest are

technologies. We have to distinguish between standards and technologies. SET stands for

Secure Electronic Transaction and is for credit card transactions over the net whereas SSL

is short for Secure Socket Layer and is basically a transport layer over which you can run

any application. As for Web EDI, it is just a fancy name for web-enabled EDI. For any

standard to become a standard, it must be open-both machine and vendor independent. It

must be decentralized or distributed, meaning it should allow information to flow from

anywhere to anywhere.






If there is any concern, it is for the fact that there is more than one standard for the
same thing-for instance, Millicent, Mondex and Digicash are all standards which can be

used for micro-payments on the net. It is not surprising that none of these have taken off

so far. Having more than one standard is really a hindrance to the growth of ecommerce.

The participating members will put off transacting over the web till they feel confident

that the other party will also adopt the same standard. The very essence of the internet

is that any computer can talk to any computer, irrespective of who manufactured it or

maintains it. Unless standards adopted for ecommerce are in the same spirit, it will

continue to be an issue.

How different are these

standards from one another? Are there any specific advantage in adopting one standard over

the other?



The standards mentioned above are all essentially meant to do different things. Hence,

comparing them would be pretty much like comparing apples to oranges. As a broad

statement, one can say that in the history of the internet, the only standards that have

survived are those that are open-meaning that the specifications are available and anyone

can implement them. If TCP/IP has emerged as the de facto standard for the internet, it is

because of its openness and simplicity. Basically, standards are built through user

groups. Hence one ought to go for a standard that is RFC (request for comment) compliant

or where complete specifications are available. RFCs are put out by the user groups. And

of course, standards must be scalable.

Do you reckon that we might soon

see a day when these multiple standards will converge and become one in order to

facilitate faster ecommerce activity?



For sure, a single standard will eventually emerge but it would not be due to

convergence of various approaches, since converging of multiple standards is a technical

nightmare. Hence, it is not a workable proposition, more so in a distributed environment

prevalent on the web. It might make more sense to start off with a clean slate to arrive

at a compromise and agreement on a new standard which accommodates contributions coming

from various vendors.






Alternately, the most popular (that which manages to survive), and if it gets adapted it
will become a standard. That is one way. The other is when dominant players pick up and

adapt a standard. Standards also happen when users start using a particular standard in a

big way because it is open, freely available and can built easily on it. Today, when it

comes to secure transactions over the internet, people will usually go the SET way. At the

same time, many companies today have adopted SSL. However, in SSL, banks are likely to

charge high transaction fees as it carries a higher risk for them as acquirers. What is to

be understood is that SSL is not a substitute for SET.






I would bet on the survival of open and decentralized standards that are not owned by any
corporation or conglomeration but by groups like OMG (Object Management Group).

Will it be the market forces

that will play the role of the arbitrator in making this happen?



Not completely. While market forces do determine the stabilization in most places, on the
internet it might not be the case, since quite often, the average net user does not know

and could not care less to know what the net can do for him technically. Conventionally,

business is done by surveying the customer first, finding out the requirements and then

providing it. On the net, things work differently. One proposes a standard/service largely

based on a very educated guess based on their experience (bad or good) and let the market

(usage) decide whether the standard/service will be adopted. Ultimately, the customer will

decide, but in this case the customer will not "ask" for it, since the customer,

more often than not, does not know what he or she can get. Customers know what they want

from a business point of view. Whoever offers those kinds of services is likely to

succeed. So the choice is, in effect, one of elimination.






Also, customers today are looking for best practices, that is, robust business rules which
the solution/software vendor is expected to being to the end customer. It might be prudent

to closely watch organizations like IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) and their

discussion groups comprising technology people from various participating ORG

organizations. Though discussions are by technical people they are, all the same, in

direct interaction with customers and hence have a good grasp of which way things ought to

move. Finally, both market forces and regulatory board will play a major role.

Can you draw a direct

correlation between standards and growth of ecommerce activity?



The sooner we have standards the faster we will see the maturing of the net marketplace.
Having said this, standards are one among many others that will drive the market for

ecommerce. For instance, policies. Singapore enacted the prevalent laws only in mid '98.

Digital signatures have to be provided legal status; you need free convertibility of

currency in order to buy and sell across the net; backing of industry giants who will

adopt and implement it. For instance, without backing of Visa, MasterCard and others, SET

would never have taken off.