INTERNET - E-COMMERCE

INTERNET

The internet started in the 60s, when the American Defence Department wanted an extremely safe way of sending messages in case of nuclear attack. From the 1960s to the 1990s the Internet was used primarily by the Defence Department and by researchers in industry and universities to connect separate computers and to send e-mail messages.

All that changed in the mid-l990s with three major developments:

The birth of the World Wide Web (WWW or "the Web");

Hypertext;

Graphical browsers.

The Internet is a network of people and information, linked together by telephone lines which are connected to computers. Information can be transported, for example, through e-mail and the WWW. These applications are based on a client/server relationship, in which your computers is the client and a remote computers is the server. All you need to join this system is a computer, a normal telephone line, a modem and an account with an Internet Service Provider.

The company can:

v Promote their products and services easily and cheaply to a worldwide market.

v Obtain, send, receive and store information in written, audio and visual forms. All types of information are available on the Web;

v Interact with other companies and find information about competitors, collaborators, customers and suppliers.

v Buy and sell;

v Find support for business start-up or development;

v Advertise for and find staff;

v Using the Internet for live communication, like a telephone and, you can also see each other while talking.

E-COMMERCE

E-commerce means 'doing business electronically, it refers to the buying and selling of products and services via the Internet. Electronic commerce applications started in the early 1970s but it was limited to large corporations, financial institutions and a few businesses. Later it expanded to other transaction processing so that manufacturers, retailers, service providers and so could also use it,  its rapid growth among millions of potential customers.

The impact of e-commerce are

Ø Product promotion: e-commerce enhances promotion of products and