John prepared this presentation for a general business audience to explain what the Internet revolution is, examine its roots in technology, business, and culture, and predict how much of it will last. One theme that we have been developing during the last six months is the difference between commercial transactions and Internet interactions.
Commercial transactions occur when customers actually buy something.
This paper was written for epicentric. John wrote this paper to describe new ways of using Internet portal technology to support goal-directed work. The term ports described sites of this type better than the term portals. While most observers described enterprise portals as front end systems that organized and personalized information, our client, IONA Technologies, was encountering requirements for integration and linkage of information, applications, and transactions through portals, as well. The catalyst for this paper was the increasing number of Internet commerce sites that were integrating their sales organizations with their commerce sites.