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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Moments of brilliance, but not consistent, April 17, 2001
The subject of E-commerce is a curious one. I mean, what is it? Is it only electronic storefronts, or does it apply to airline frequent flier sites? What about business to business? What exactly do you expect to find in a book on this subject? Do you need a how-to guide on building transaction-oriented web applications? E-commerce texts seem to fall into 1 of 3 areas: marketing, design, and 'both'. This book falls into the 'both' category.I can easily envision a generation of MBA students (with no actual experience doing anything in the real world) being inspired by this book, and confidently setting out into the work world armed with a veritable dictionary full of E-commerce buzzwords. After all, that is much of what an education consists of-gaining a specialized language. In this book, the buzzwords come thick and fast. The reader is warned about this on the cover, and the authors take pains to explain in the preface that just because something is a buzzword, doesn't mean that it doesn't mean anything. Such use of language can be distracting, but keep in mind that sometimes a paradigm actually is a paradigm. Several of the chapters are almost inspirational, especially Chapter 1, which is profound and insightful, providing guidance to both general managers and technicians. Engineers would be well-advised to avoid being naïve about human behavior and not let their personal feelings about privacy blind them to the consumer desire for customization. Many web sites would be much more appealing to their patrons if their designers and decision-makers understood this chapter and its e-commerce imperatives. Unfortunately, the book is marred by an uneven approach. Chapter 7, for instance, is a disaster, filled with gems like "An industry-specific component is unique to a given industry." This chapter is on component-based development, which is a difficult and complex subject, yet is crucial to contemporary E-business application architectures. I'm not sure how much a non-technical person can expect to get out of this chapter, but the gist of it probably comes through, and at least the reader gets exposed to important technology acronyms such as CORBA and JDBC. Chapter 8, "E-Commerce Business and Technology Strategies," appears to have been written by the same author as Chapter 1, and it flies high, containing very wise statements such as "Before inter-enterprise teams can be effective, they need to build a shared vision." Internet applications are complex; I have seen what happens without such a shared vision, and it isn't pretty. Unfortunately, this chapter bogs down in sections also. I think the author is onto something profound with "What if the business engineering process was carried out with business components as the modeling medium?" but I really don't understand what it means-just a bit more discussion might have resulted in a blinding insight for me here. One area that I thought especially interesting was the topic of standards, and the politics behind the standards bodies. The experience of the authors in this ever-changing business area is shared here to the benefit of architects who have to choose among competing standards-choices that may turn out to be very expensive several years down the road. Overall, the book is information dense. There is quite a lot of ideas here, and I kept several colors of highlighter busy during the first read through. I might skim it again, because I didn't get it all the first time. There are so many things to discuss when a book sets out to introduce both the business models and the technology models. I think the authors were more successful in the former, and their introduction of concepts such as 'agility' and 'community' would greatly help the architects, designers, and coders in understanding exactly why they are being asked to do what they are doing. As far as the technology presentation goes, in general it is superficial and inadequate. Security is a vitally important topic in E-commerce design, but is given very little coverage. A 1.5 page introduction to the topic of public key encryption is entirely inadequate-I personally cannot cover this complex idea in such a short amount of space. Several of the other technology areas were given equally short shrift, making this a whirlwind tour that introduces, but doesn't always satisfy. I recommend it, but I wish it were less uneven. The book does live up to its jacket, and it is entirely reasonably to claim "This comprehensive guide takes a holistic view of business and technology, enabling CEOs, COOs, CIOs, and CTOs to move boldly into their e-Commerce initiatives." It truly is an information system area that requires a high degree of interaction between both sides of a corporation, and the firms that succeed in this space will be those with employees who understand both technology and marketing. "Enterprise E-Commerce" provides a useful bridge between these often conflicting functions.
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