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CAN EX-LOTUS HEAD BREAK INTERNET ROADBLOCKS?
Jim Manzi, former head of Lotus and president and CEO
of Industry.Net Corp., a company specializing in business-to-business
commerce on the Internet, opened this month’s conference on the
Internet at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia.
Manzi views the Internet as a communications revolution. However, the
medium has roadblocks to overcome. One of the more obvious is trying
to find information in the huge store of raw text found on the network.
However the roadblock Manzi sees is completing a transaction over the
network.“Despite all the buzz about the announcements of electronic
commerce, more often than not at the end of the long trail of figuring
out what you want, you have to call an 800-number or fax an order,”
he said.
The solution is a transaction processing system such as the one Manzi's
company Industry.Net is offering to process orders for some clients.
It expects to have its full transaction system for business-to-business
purchases on line within about a year.
Manzi's contention that there is a commercial market that is separate
from the consumer market flies in the face of findings from Forrester
Research Inc. (see story page 2). The Cambridge, Mass. research firm
says the two markets are highly interrelated.
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