Cisco Systems Inc., the huge California-based manufacturer of hardware for Internet companies, is a case in point. Ninety-two percent of its orders from South America now arrive electronically, as faraway customers at screens type in specifications of the systems they want, working out details of configuration with special software. The orders are transmitted across the Internet, and the products are built to order, then loaded aboard jets and sent down south. Sue Stemel, director of Internet commerce information technology at Cisco, says that ordering electrically, with software tools guiding their decisions, helps people abroad make difficult orders correctly the first time. And it generally means the product goes out the door to them about a week sooner.
Services make up another huge form of invisible e-commerce.
Data-processing companies have no technical reason to put their computer centers within the borders of the countries where their customers operate. EDS, for instance, handles the mammoth data-processing needs of General Motors Corp. worldwide, doing much of that work from data centers in the United States. Envoys from the industry were soon knocking on the doors of Argentine officials to object, and so far the law has not been implemented. In recent months, the United States has been negotiating with the European Union over an EU directive implemented last year concerning privacy of consumer data online. By U.S. standards it is quite stiff.