The sober realization that many companies do not have the necessary infrastructure to support fully automated business has attracted enormous investments in the infrastructure.

Despite the death of the dotcoms, and the solemn air of a sagging economy, the Internet is steadily growing and changing the face of industry. Online businesses are scrambling to improve their sites’ content, and handle an increased flow of customer traffic. Many are at the stage of turning their web sites from electronic brochures into interactive places of business. Conversely, service providers are leveraging their assets to increase both their service capabilities, and interest in their product.

The booming of infrastructure development is driven by increased focus on the quality of the customer’s end experience, and by a tendency of online merchants to outsource to an ever-wider assortment of service providers. E-businesses are now recognizing that customers no longer are satisfied with flashy web sites; they now expect functionality. This means that special attention has to be given to customer expectations, such as the speed and ease of transactions. Overall, this shift in priorities points toward the development of a strong, smoothly running infrastructure. With the trend turning more toward selective outsourcing, packaged all-purpose software has fallen out of favor. Web site operators are choosing to rely on a network of service providers to meet their needs, rather than on only one alpha-vendor.

As a result of these changes, data is liable to be rapidly exchanged among companies in disparate quarters, including web hosts, storage hosts, logistics and fulfillment departments, customer databases, and security providers. A bottleneck anywhere along this vast interconnected chain can spell disappointment for a customer, or potential business associate, and be the catalyst to go elsewhere to meet future needs. Complete interoperability, therefore, is the new goal of e-business.

Vying to assist online merchants achieve that goal is an array of vendors, each offering solutions on how to get there. Some vendors are choosing to concentrate on the application-to-application support space. They work with clients to consolidate operations through easy-to-navigate interfaces. Others are busy retooling mainframe-class infrastructure tools and environments to make them e-commerce compatible. Yet other vendors are approaching this goal by developing infrastructure-building materials for legacy systems that are moving into e-commerce. Some vendors are also adding content management and software change management as part of their service platform. This will address and help clear the confusing code-work left over in many legacy systems, the vestiges of past programmers who were oblivious of each other’s designs.

Wireless computing is also taken into account in the development of the infrastructure. Some vendors are now offering trimmed-down versions of their personalized web designs to fit the screens of hand-held computers. This involves transmitting only content that is absolutely pertinent to the user — a selection that can be based on a user profile. Another area of planned improvement is in remote information management. It is hoped that, in the not too distant future, users will be able to easily integrate mobile business processes with complex back-office systems.

Brick-and-mortar companies have recognized the need to have a viable and cost-effective infrastructure, and are investing considerably to achieve that goal. They are, in so doing, laying the foundation for the future of e-commerce. Perhaps one day in technology textbooks the beginning of the 21st century would be remembered as the Age of the Infrastructure.

Sources: Infrastructure is Big in 2001
Dylan Tweney
ECompany, January 4, 2001
http://www.ecompany.com/articles/web/0,1653,9075,00.html

E-Biz Trends: Infrastructure Gets Respect
Joseph McKendrick
Ecomworld, February 2001
http://www.ecomworld.com/search/author/article.cfm?ContentId=530