The guests at Business Week Online's weekly conference on Feb. 19 were Amy Cortese, software editor, and John W. Verity, information management editor. They discussed the Feb. 27 Cover Story, on new software for cyberspace.
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OnlineHost: Good evening and welcome to Business Week Online's weekly conference. We're talking tonight about the Cover Story in the latest issue, Cyberspace--all about the race to create software for the new world, including software to help you build a business there. Two of the story's principal authors are with us tonight to discuss what's newest.
Amy Cortese (ACORTESE) is software editor of Business Week. She has been covering the computer industry for eight years for various publications and as an industry analyst. John W. Verity (JVerityBW) is information management editor for BW--and the author of the acclaimed Cover Story last Nov. 14, Doing Business on the Internet.
The moderator of tonight's conference is Jack Dierdorff (JackBW), consulting editor of Business Week Online. And now on to your questions and comments about the newest software for cyberspace.
JackBW: Good evening to all of you on AOL, and welcome, Amy and John.
JVerityBW: Hi, Jack!
ACORTESE: Hi, all!
JackBW: I'll give you the first question, and it's a basic one. Can you define cyberspace and the Information Superhighway? Is there any difference between them?
JVerityBW: An easy one to start with, eh? Well, cyberspace was originally defined as a consensual hallucination, fostered by a network of computers, whose data banks could be moved through as if they existed in space--this due to William Gibson, in his book, Neuromancer. Today, cyberspace has come to mean the digital electronic world available on networks such as AOL and the Internet. The Info SuperHighway is a figure of speech that seems to capture the idea that all digital objects--text, videos, graphics, telephone calls, etc.--will one day be movable and available anywhere at anytime. The Info Highway will actually be many different networks all connected together and giving the illusion of one--and it will be of very high capacity--orders of magnitude beyond what's available today.
ACORTESE: The term Info Superhighway has also come to carry negative connotations--government intervention and toll-taking.
JackBW: Race 007 left us a question--and then ran. But it's a good one.
Question: How will Microsoft entering the business help/hurt the industry?. P.S. Mail it to me. I gotta go! Sorry.
JVerityBW: Cyberspace is big enough for everyone, I'd say. Microsoft's entry will only enrich cyberspace, although if the company is a software monopoly, it could define the major doorways into the I-way--by defining the desktop or client software entry points, such as Windows.
ACORTESE: Microsoft could help by making it easier to get onto the I-way. But a lot of people fear Microsoft will set itself up as a "toll-taker."
JackBW: NancySmith has a provocative question about the "ecash" your story discusses. First perhaps you should define ecash.
Question: I have a very small business. "Ecash" is an interesting concept, but I fear I will fall between cracks, because of the big bucks in sales that Visa might need to let me start an account. Will ecash be too expensive for a small business to use?
ACORTESE: No. The whole point of ecash is to make it easy for anyone--a small business or an individual--to be able to participate in electronic commerce. Ecash is really just digital coins and bills.
JVerityBW: You can imagine that the ecash companies will go after high-volume merchants first.
JackBW: The KO wonders about a new chip from Intel.
Question: Should Intel's new chip have any major effect on the industry?
JVerityBW: This means the P6, I presume, the follow-on to Pentium. It is probably going to be a hit, but as we've seen, Intel is getting a good run for its money in microchips these days. Like IBM of yore, it faces some pesky clone makers.
ACORTESE: And new challengers such as the Power PC chip.
JackBW: MMendes73 has a question a lot of consumers will ask.
Question: How will security be handled? How do I know that someone will not use my name and money for something I know nothing about?
JVerityBW: The security issue is still up in the air. The big leap will be when everyone gets their own public key, a large ID number that will guard against unauthorized copying. But there's no stopping merchants from using the info they acquire legitimately--from your visits to their e-shops, Web servers, etc. I know of a bank that's doing this now, as it sells credit cards on the Net.
ACORTESE: Many companies on the Net have not implemented stringent security yet.
JackBW: BruceGreg goes straight to the bottom line for John and Jane Q. Public.
Question: Is there any really "cost-effective" application for the home coming with this new software?
JVerityBW: Home banking is the big cost-effective application on the Net, as shown by Intuit's success. I'd say that some news services will be cost-effective. Remember, the main need for information comes from people involved in markets of some kind--stocks, or whatever. There's also catalog sales, although that's not really proven yet.
JackBW: Slyguy123 is interested in details of the security business.
Question: Along the line of Net security, who would provide the security, who are the front-running companies to provide the service, and what type of security are we talking about?
ACORTESE: There are a lot of different companies working on security. Most are using some sort of encryption technology as the basis--but from there they are taking all sorts of different approaches. You also have to differentiate between secure transactions--Microsoft, Visa, and Netscape are a few of the companies working on this--and other security systems such as firewalls.
JackBW: A good question from ParagonYe on conferencing--right where we are now.
Question: Do you know of any company that is planning to provide online conferencing with security and confidentiality as part of the service?
JVerityBW: No, but I'm not sure what Paragon Ye means by conferencing, and what's the security problem?
JackBW: John, for private business meetings it could be a problem.
JVerityBW: Well, it is possible now to have private, secure conferences on AOL and the Internet, I'm sure.
JackBW: Except for people like Kevin Mitnick doing industrial espionage!
JackBW: WalkerNYC has a question a lot of us in publishing have been asking.
Question: How long do you think it will be before online services, like most other media forms, will become primarily advertiser-supported?
JVerityBW: Advertising is the $64 question. The ad-editorial mix is quite different in cyberspace. Some people, including Mr. Gates, have envisioned a scheme where advertisers would pay YOU to watch their ads on your computer! I think it will be a while before advertisers pay for the full freight of on-line conferencing. Right now, it's kind of pleasant, like National Public Radio, no?
JackBW: NeedToKnow asks about marketing and post-sale follow-up.
Question: How about electronic marketing, customer support, and technical support?
JVerityBW: Technical support is a big one on the Net: There are companies that let customers get answers to technical info via E-mail, or direct browsing of their support databases. And as for customer support, I know there is a great deal of work going on in that area. GE has put up thousands of pages on the World Wide Web for its plastics customers to browse at their leisure.
ACORTESE: Microsoft and other companies are even building in hot-links into their software products that connect you directly with the appropriate online help area.
JackBW: The next question comes from Forbes Gr.
Question: What's your prediction for the Lotus Notes AT&T service?
JVerityBW: The Notes network AT&T has will be a hit, because Notes is a giant hit. Notes might become an industry standard for corporate information systems and a potential challenger to Microsoft's lead in that market.
ACORTESE: AT&T plans to put a huge amount of money and advertising into Network Notes--I predict it will be big.
JackBW: Security is a big issue tonight--this one from PreVet99.
Question: What kind of security is available for major industries against hackers such as the infamous PhyberOptik and the underground world of the LOD?
JVerityBW: The main challenge on the Internet, security-wise, is to make sure that even if a hacker gets into your computer, he can't read what's there. This is a tough one, because the I-net was designed with openness in mind. It will evolve, however, as AT&T, MCI, IBM, and perhaps others add closed extensions, which will be tougher to bust into. I think the hackers will always be there, and always somewhat effective. But companies will learn to live with that, and keep their very private info off very public networks.
JackBW: David41Br has one directly for you, John.
Question: Please have JVerity say more about the catalog business. Are there any companies doing electronic commerce on a large scale right now?
JVerityBW: If you mean exchanging money over the Net, no, there isn't much activity. But there is a company called CDnow!, which claims to be selling $3 million in music disks a year over the Net. However, CDnow! doesn't always take Visa numbers over the Net; many, if not most, customers move that kind of info by phone or fax. Plus, as you may know, there are zillions of little firms advertising on the Net. I would guess that the total sum of all electronic commerce right now is well under $1 billion a year. A figure I quoted once was $250 million, which includes all the private services.
JackBW: Exports and encryption--a question from SmartWall.
Question: With our present export laws on encryption, how do you think U.S. business stands in the world market for electronic payment systems?
JVerityBW: I think that this encryption-export question will be a challenge in the years ahead. This goes right to the heart of the Info Age and cyberspatial economics, to coin some jargon. I think that there is a strong challenger in the Mondex scheme, offered by a British bank--NatWest, as I recall. It also uses the public-key encryption scheme, which seems as if it may have been exported already. But maybe not. Read BW for the rest of the story!
JackBW: TTony HH goes to the issue of making cyberspace travel easier.
Question: So how much easier will it be to travel through cyberspace with the new technology?
ACORTESE: Well, it depends which new technology you are talking about. New interface software is definitely making cyberspace a friendlier place-- but I think we have a long way to go before it's so easy that everyone, including my mother, is on it.
JVerityBW: Cyber-travel will soon be so easy you won't know the difference between what's in your computer and what's in the rest of the Net. It will all blend into one giant cyberspace. Talk about cosmic consciousness!
JackBW: The main thing is unscrambling the mysteries of the Internet, for now.
JackBW: Walker NYC has another question.
Question: Which do you think will become the dominant interactive device in the home--the computer or the TV?
ACORTESE: Definitely the PC!
JVerityBW: Definitely the TV!
ACORTESE: Or maybe it will be the refrigerator...
JackBW: Care to amplify?
ACORTESE: Why the TV, John? Don't we have a bandwidth issue to deal with first?
JVerityBW: Ha, ha! Actually, I think they'll merge into one device, called...I don't know what. But you can already receive TV on your PC screen, and TVs are going high-definition, so connect the dots and they seem to blend in a couple of years--well, maybe more than that. The key is that all programming will be digital in the future, and that will force the two devices together. Maybe not in this century, so to speak, but fairly soon.
JackBW: WuBrian cuts close to the bone, here on AOL. This has to be the last question.
Question: What do you predict for online service companies like AOL with the evolution of the World Wide Web and other less expensive alternatives?
JVerityBW: I think the Web will be one more access mechanism to connect people with services such as AOL. Right now, you get into AOL only through your Windows PC, but in the future, you may (I'm guessing) be able to get into it via the WWW. AOL will be an active Web page, so to speak, but you'll probably have to pay, like now, to use it. The real message is that you ain't seen nothing yet on the Web. It's only just beginning, and it's evolving fast. Recall, too, that AOL has bought two, no three, very important Web/I-net companies. Who knows what developments lurk in its research labs?
JackBW: Everyone, including AOL, has plans for a Web site now.
JVerityBW: The Web is one of the fastest growing "things" in the technical world right now. It is doubling in size every 53 days, according to Sun Microsystems.
JackBW: That has to be it for tonight. Thanks to you, Amy and John, and to all of you on AOL for your questions--including the ones we couldn't get to.
JVerityBW: Bye, all. I look forward to seeing you in cyberspace.
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