e mainstream." A greater awareness of catalog-server marketing and revenue potentials, as well as comfort with security standards, such as Secure Electronic Transaction (SET), is spurring the interest, Marquardt believes.
But, as with most gold rushes, there's danger. Setting up servers can be time consuming and riddled with technical obstacles because "turnkey" catalog products are still immature. "No [software ven
dor] has the end-to-end development needs covered," says
Darwin Melnyk
, president of eMedia.inc (Portland, OR), an Internet-oriented reseller. The worst offenders? Payment-system vendors, whose products aren't backed by service departments that can help resellers overcome technical troubles. "As soon as you pour money into the software, the cobwebs start to appear," he complains.
Instead, vendors rationalize missing capabilities by referring resellers to their partners. "Partnerships result when people from two companies get together over a beer one night and talk about working together," he grouses.
The good news is that a growing number of catalog-server pioneers are learning more survival skills with each new project. These skills can help resellers that are new to the market get their servers up faster and see their profits rise higher.
Sales Spike
Consumers will purchase $1.1 billion worth of products from on-line catalogs this year -- twice as much as in
1996 -- according to the consultancy Forrester Research (Cambridge, MA). By the year 2000, Web-based catalogs will serve up $6.5 billion in sales, the consultancy says. Bolstering these retail sales is the growth of business-to-business electronic-commerce activities. Forrester says this market will rise to $66 billion for U.S.-based sites by 2000.
Marquardt's statistics bear this out: Business-to-business sales represent 40 percent of IOC's business, but they are growing faster than sales on the retail side. One reason is the allure of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)-like relationships, which safely use the Internet instead of expensive private, secure networks.
Ben Taylor, a service manager for Cambridge Technology Partners, sees the most demand for Unix-based servers, although resellers and integrators also need to be versed in Windows NT, depending on customer needs. He believes it's important to create catalog servers in a multi-step process. Step one is devoted to launching the electronic
listing of goods or services. Once that's stable, resellers can add electronic-transaction capabilities. (Taylor says he's investigating OpenMarket and CommerceOne, two commercial products that tackle monetary transactions for catalog servers.) Step three tackles inventory control with software that can immediately verify product availability for on-line shoppers.
Depending on their complexity, catalog servers can take one to eight months to complete and cost anywhere from $100,000 to $200,000 (for a simple 1000-item showcase) to $1 million or more (for tens of thousands of items with transaction and inventory-control capabilities), Taylor says.
Extreme Programming
But with Internet development tools so shaky, how do resellers satisfy the increasing demand for catalog servers? Sometimes brute-force programming is the only answer. For example, BSG, a reseller and systems integrator based in Columbia, Maryland, created an on-line travel agency by programming in C and using CGI interfaces to
connect the server with database back ends. "C gave us a system that worked, even though it wasn't whiz-bang," Al Dunn, BSG technical director, says. This tried-and-true Internet programming technique worked, but the solution was unique. "There's not a lot of code that we can transfer to new projects," Dunn laments.
Fortunately, new catalog-development products might make brute force unnecessary. Within the past six months, products from Actra, IBM, iCat, Microsoft, SilverStream, and others have matured from buggy works in progress to stable programs.
Among the most helpful packages for resellers are full-scale development and hosting platforms, such as the venerable Netscape Merchant Systems, which is being repackaged and updated by Actra, a joint venture of Netscape Communications and GE Information Services. A trend in this product category is three-tiered architectures that break out staging, production, and transaction duties onto separate servers. (The staging server provides a place to tes
t new features and presentation graphics before putting a catalog on-line.) Most of these products offer development tools and scripting languages to create front ends to ODBC databases, which hold product information and handle updates.
How can Web integrators decide whether it's best to use one of these third-party products or brute-force programming? You should consider the trade-offs between ease of use and flexibility, Taylor says. Experienced C programmers have almost limitless possibilities in terms of what they can create, although the process is time consuming. Third-party tools might not be as flexible, but they can speed development, thanks to point-and-click convenience. Another plus to using tools: support staffs that can help you get around the rough spots.
Past Is Present
No matter what development platform you choose, success or failure for most catalog servers often comes down to how well they work with legacy systems. Business logic already in use has the advantage of ha
ving been revised over time and debugged under real-world conditions. Clients and resellers alike can use these valuable characteristics to their advantage. When BSG brought its travel-agency customer on-line, the integrator found treasure in an algorithm the agency had been using for years. "It analyzes all available flights worldwide to look for the best deal for a customer," Dunn explains.
Over time, the code expanded to offer the same type of analysis for car rentals and hotel rates, including consideration for corporate discounts. BSG built the catalog server around this analytical code. The result: The agency is offering its clients a direct way to book itineraries with the same resources available to live agents, while keeping costs low by delivering the application over the Internet.
The key to legacy code, resellers say, is a thorough understanding of the existing application. They warn that even the client's knowledge about the legacy app might be sketchy because it most likely evolved o
ver time, with a number of developers (some no longer with the company) contributing code. "If you don't understand the code completely, you don't have a prayer for developing a successful catalog server," Dunn says.
What to do? Dunn organizes technical meetings that become "intense and active" listening sessions that teach BSG programmers intimate details about a client's business.
Also important is the legacy app's potential for scalability, which will help you estimate how much development time and extra coding are necessary to launch the electronic catalog. For example, in BSG's travel-agency project, the legacy app used what Dunn calls a "distributed" design. "Each piece operated in its own partition using good concepts of encapsulation and distribution," he explains.
Cool Tools
So what kinds of products are available? Many, including some frameworks that come with popular Web servers, such as Netscape Enterprise Server and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). Here's a
look at some of the tools that deserve attention.
Actra CommerceXpert.
This product family consists of five packages that variously handle Internet buying, selling, marketing, and electronic transactions. The upcoming MerchantXpert, which will supersede the Netscape Merchant System, will use new order-management capabilities to help resellers create dynamic storefronts that can be different for each customer. When a consumer logs on to the catalog site, the server matches the buyer's ID to a buying profile and can automatically present discounts and promotions tailored for that person.
Dynamic features like these -- including existing capabilities for electronic coupons -- have already given Netscape Merchant System a reputation for sophistication and development complexity. The expense and programming demands of using it make it best for large-scale catalog applications, such as L.L. Bean- and J. Crew-class companies, according to Marquardt.
Resellers can create storefronts in Mercha
nt System using canned HTML forms, which can be customized. HTML display-page extensions and APIs can also help developers modify storefronts and product displays as needed. HTML-based meta language extensions (MLEs) link page templates directly to the underlying database. They can also detect price changes and automatically publish updated pages.
iCat Electronic Commerce Suite.
This package consists of CarboServer, a catalog server that ships with the Sybase SQL Anywhere database (for new installations) or with support for other DBMSes via ODBC. The server supports Windows 95 and NT, Sun Solaris, and SGI Irix. The company plans a Macintosh version but hasn't announced a release date. Like Merchant System, CarboServer uses templates to help resellers design Web pages and draw information from the underlying product database. An iCat editor lets integrators modify templates and plug-ins or create new ones. The editor works with iCat's proprietary command language, an extension of SQL that has a sc
ripting environment that uses wizards and GUIs for simple projects.
IBM Net.Commerce.
Net.Commerce shines for smaller, 1000- to 2000-item catalogs driven by DB2 and other ODBC-compliant DBMSes. "There aren't as many features as in Netscape's Merchant System, but the software is faster to implement and the licensing costs are less," Marquardt says.
For example, IOC used Net.Commerce to build a recent catalog site in 1-1/2 months at a cost of $15,000. Marquardt estimates the same job would have cost between $35,000 and $40,000 in development time, licensing fees, and hardware using Merchant System. The trade-off: The site doesn't offer electronic coupons. Nevertheless, Net.Commerce can help integrators design catalogs that use IDs and buying histories to tailor Web pages to the needs of individual buyers.
The bundled Template Designer enables developers to design Java-based Web pages. The designer can drop into Web pages special effects that exist as Java applets, downloadable files, or
audio/video clips.
Net.Commerce supports Netscape Enterprise Server and IBM's Internet Connection Secure Server, which ships with Net.Commerce. OS support includes Windows NT, IBM AIX, and OS/390. The company also plans to release AS/400 and Sun Solaris versions.
SilverStream Application Server and Visual Designer.
This Java-based development platform handles structured data, such as traditional text and numbers in a legacy database, plus it can pull in multimedia content, including still images, video, and audio data. SilverStream can then help resellers fold in collaboration, à la Amazon.com's readers' reviews, so visitors to catalog sites can benefit from the experiences of other visitors. "SilverStream is a Web application and a development platform that's similar to Powerbuilder," Dunn says.
SilverStream connects to relational databases through Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). Integrators can develop in Java and plug the resulting applications into the Java code that Si
lverStream automatically generates. Alternatively, SilverStream offers a scripting environment that uses wizards and GUIs for simple projects.
Commerce One Commerce Chain suite.
This product family, intended for business-to-business transactions, takes aim squarely against expensive and proprietary Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) networks. Using the Internet as the transport layer, the Commerce Chain products stack a catalog server, a multimedia-data manager, and a transaction server onto the public network.
C1 BuySite, the proxy catalog server, can simultaneously store catalogs from multiple suppliers in one central location. The associated C1 SupplySite multimedia catalog is a development and maintenance tool that uses object-oriented-programming principles to organize and deliver images, video, and text as objects. C1 REOS 5, the transaction server, provides the security layer for electronic orders, quotes, inventory queries, and other monetary communications.
Open Market Live
Commerce.
Another catalog-server product designed primarily for business-to-business applications,
LiveCommerce
is designed to permit end users to quickly set up customized, private catalogs -- so unique, catalog-including pricing discounts can be presented to each business partner.
Flexible search tools also let catalog customers choose how they find items. Built-in authoring tools include design templates that help establish a consistent look throughout a catalog. Components written in Java provide remote administration of the underlying catalog database. As this article went to press, LiveCommerce, which sells for $45,000 for one development license, was available only for Windows NT.
Other Challenges
Melnyk says that because catalog-server applications are nascent, customers often don't realize the commitments of money and resources needed to launch a site, or even how to define a project. A "blue sky" method, where resellers and customers sort through possib
ilities, can be time consuming and still leave project definitions fuzzy. "It's better to point to a catalog-server application that's up and running and ask, 'Do you want one like this?'," he says. He adds that by seeing implementations of order-entry features, order-management systems, and other common elements, customers can mix and match features to decide what they want in their implementation.
Marquardt encourages clients to draft a formal RFP to get expectations and requirements on paper. The flip side is also important: Include people from the customer's technical staff in the development and testing stages so that someone at the company has a thorough knowledge of the application after your integration work is finished, Dunn adds.
One reason why server specification is difficult is that companies try to model existing paper-based catalogs. Web-based catalogs require constant maintenance and updates, which go from perhaps quarterly (for paper catalogs) to weekly or daily (for on-line versi
ons). On-line catalogs are dynamic -- not only because they're updated regularly, but because their format, graphics, and information change, depending on individual customer needs. The catalog becomes the new face of the company, so companies need to figure out how to maintain the same level of quality as the paper solution while updating the catalog constantly.
Managerial challenges also exist on the development side. Dunn credits his four-person team of Internet developers for its success. "Internet development is still immature; as a result, we're dealing with a lot of frustration from kludgey products," he observes. "The only antidote is a team that blends humor with technical savvy."
Where to Find
Actra Corp.
Mountain View, CA
Phone: 408-542-3200
Internet:
http://www.actracorp.com
Cashing In on Web Shopping Sprees
