The hacker was Nathan Meyer Rothschild, head of the London branch of the international banking business that still bears the family name. During the terror-filled hours when the London market believed Bonaparte had taken the day, Rothschild clambered through the window of opportunity his disinformation had pried opened. The technology has changed since the Duke of Wellington's victory, but the concerns of business remain the same. If money is the blood of commerce, most businesspeople know that information is the heart. Money won't flow without a push.
Commerce demands open, secure channels.
Only today it's all happening at high speed over global networks. In this issue, we explore the dimensions of electronic commerce. We look at current best practices and report on what your colleagues are doing today and what they plan to do soon, which technologies companies are investing in and which technologies they are not yet ready to embrace. While we don't pretend to have all the answers to the questions that motivated us to create this special issue, we hope you'll discover a few insights that lead to answers of your own. In the process of our reporting, we were astonished once more by the creativity of business and its ability to mesh ideas and varied technologies into ventures that work, grow and change the face of the world as we know it.