Maximizing Business Value Through Internet-Based Technologies

The internet provides a synthesis of computing and communication capabilities that adds value to every part of the business cycle. Companies derive significant business value from their internet-based applications, leveraging the web to enhance their operations and reach.

Internet-based technologies, such as intranets and extranets, often result in substantial cost savings. These technologies are typically less expensive to develop, operate, and maintain than traditional systems. This cost efficiency is crucial in today’s competitive business environment, where operational savings can significantly impact the bottom line.

Moreover, the internet enables companies to attract new customers through innovative marketing and product offerings. Online platforms provide an expansive reach, allowing businesses to connect with a global audience. Enhanced customer service and support capabilities, facilitated through the internet, help retain existing customers by offering convenience and improved user experiences.

Generating revenue through electronic commerce applications stands out as a primary source of business value. E-commerce websites allow companies to sell products and services directly to consumers worldwide, breaking geographical barriers and expanding market presence.

To summarize, most companies build e-commerce websites to achieve six major business values:

1. Generate new revenue from online sales by tapping into a global market.
2. Reduce costs through online sales and customer support, eliminating the need for physical storefronts and extensive customer service teams.
3. Attract new customers via web marketing, advertising, and online sales, utilizing data analytics to target specific demographics effectively.
4. Increase the loyalty of existing customers via improved web customer service and support, offering personalized experiences and quick resolution of issues.
5. Develop new web-based markets and distribution channels for existing products, reaching customers through various online platforms.
6. Develop new information-based products accessible on the web, such as digital content and subscription services, providing additional revenue streams.

In essence, the strategic use of the internet in business not only enhances operational efficiency but also opens up new avenues for growth and customer engagement.
Maximizing Business Value Through Internet-Based Technologies

IP – internet protocol

At the heart of the internet lies the Internet Protocol. Internet Protocol defines a packet switched network, where information is carried in packets of bits. These packets of bits are also known as datagrams.

The Internet Protocol is the primary protocol at the internet layer of the TCP/IP stack. TCP/IP or more correctly the Internet Protocol Suite is actually a suite of protocols with the expressed aim of providing meaningful computer communications.

IP, the Internet Protocol is the most important of the protocols as it is upon this that all other rely. It is responsible for determining the source and determining IP addresses of every packet.

Internet Protocol enables data and other traffic to traverse the internet and to arrive at the desired destination.

IP not only provides a standardized ‘envelope’ for the information is sent; it also contains ‘header’ that provides addressing, routing and message-handling information that enables a message to be directed to its final destination over the various media that compose the internet.
IP – internet protocol

Business Use of the Internet

Business use of the internet has expanded from an electronic information exchange to a broad platform for strategic business applications.

Notice how applications like collaboration among business partners, providing customer and vendor support, and electronic commerce have become major business uses of the internet.

Other studies of leading corporations and organizations show that they are also using Internet technologies for marketing, sales, and customer relationship management applications.

However, these studies also show that the strong growth of cross functional business applications and the emergence of applications in engineering, manufacturing, human resource, and accounting. Companies are using the Internet for business in a variety of ways, including enterprise communications and collaborations, electronic commerce, and strategic business alliance.

At General Electric Co. for example customers and designers can use intranets, extranets, the internet, and project collaborations technology to help construct a power plant from the ground up to the web.

General Electric and customer engineers can now hold virtual meeting in which blueprints can be exchanged and manipulated in real time. Then customers can use the web to watch from anywhere in the world as a turbine is built and moves down the production lines, ordering at last minute changes as needed.

While General Electric’s new system should give the company a 20% and 30% reduction in the time it takes to built a turbine and could improve the annual output of each turbine by 1% to 2%. This is one of competitive advantage.
Business Use of the Internet

Netscape navigator

In 1994, Marc Andreessen joined w2oth computer industry veteran Jim Clark to form Netscape Corporation, one of the Web’s pioneering companies using $4 million seed capital provided by Clark.

Andreessen recruited many of his former colleagues at NCSA to help him write a new Web browser, which became known as Netscape Navigator. Navigator was faster and more graphically attractive than Mosaic.

Netscape Navigator was the first browser to gain widespread commercial acceptance. Navigator is extremely similar appearance and function to Mosaic.

By end of 1994, Navigator had gained 70 percent of the Web browser and Netscape was soon selling custom software to companies that wanted a presence on the Web.

The company offered shares to the public in August 1895 in one of the most lucrative and successful initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock in the history of US business; after one day of trading, the company was worth $4.4 billion.

In 1996 Netscape released Navigator 2.0 which supported Java’s embedded applet files, contained an easy-to-use email program and incorporated JavaScript, frames and plug-ins.

Netscape has been responsible for advances in HTML Netscape’s creative team introduced new ideas, web page tables and supported them with their web browser even before they became web standards.
Netscape navigator

Spam on internet

With rapid advance of internet, email has become a very important communication medium to a great many people. Within two or three years, the spam problem has grown astronomically.

Spam, also called unsolicited commercial email or ‘junk email’ aggravates many computer users. Not only can spam be nuisance but its cost may be passed onto consumers through higher charges from internet service providers who must upgrade their system to handle traffic.

Spam refers to many varieties of exploitation, malfeasance and bad behavior and spam terminology has branched out into specific sub-domains, from ‘phishing spam’ and ‘419 spam’ to splogs, linkfarms, floodbots, content farms.

Spam is not force of nature, but the product of particular populations distributed through all the world’s countries. It is mainly used for commercial promotion. Its other uses include: social activism, political campaigning, and distribution of pornographic materials.
Spam on internet

Distributed denial of service attack

Among various internet attacks, Denial of Service (DoS) attack is a critical and continuous threat in cyber security. In general DoS attacks are implemented forcing a victim computer to reset or consuming its resources, e.g CPU cycles, memory or network bandwidth.

Internet denial-of-service attacks launched simultaneously from multiple locations are called distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, their goal is to deny access to other users, which is a popular attack method in the cyberspace.

The aim of DDoS attack is to overload the victim and render it incapable of performing normal communications or transactions.

In January 2001, web servers hosting MSN, Hotmail, Expedia and other popular Microsoft services were subjected to an DDoS attack for almost 24 hours. In July 2001, EFNet.org, a worldwide provider of Internet Relay Chat services was subjected to a sustained DDoS attack lasting almost ten days.

Distributed denial of service attacks often use zombies on computers that have been backdoored by worms or Trojans – without the consent or knowledge of their users.

In a distributed denial of service attack, the attacker remotely takes control of a ‘master’ server where the DoS code has been installed. The master server then controls the actions of ‘slave servers’ on which the code has also been installed with or without the knowledge of the owner. When instructed, these slaves flood target with traffic.
Distributed denial of service attack 

What is phishing?

Phishing has been one of the fastest-growing types of online crime in recent years. Spam has evolved to a new and dangerous form known as ‘phishing’.

Phishing differs from spam in that it is generated by a criminal intent on stealing personal data for financial gain. Phishing is a form of social engineering that consists of deceiving potential victims into revealing their personal or their company’s confidential information such as social security and financial account numbers, account passwords and other identity or security information.

The term 'social engineering' broadly refers to the act of manipulating people into unwittingly behaving in certain ways. Modern phishers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Some phishing messages can be personalized, using the target’s actual name.

URLs can be disguised so that discrepancies do not appear. When in doubt the safest thing to do is always to access the institution by typing (not copying), it’s name directly in the web browser rather than clicking on a link in e-mail.

Phishing remains a significant problem despite affecting a relatively small fraction of total internet users. The growing number of internet users coupled with the ease and low cost of carrying out phishing attacks have exposed virtually every e-mail user to phishing attacks.
What is phishing?

History of internet

The internet was created by a collection of visionaries and executed by hundred of individuals whose contributions helped develop the technology.

In the late 1960s the US Department of Defense fearful of the intentions and capabilities of the enemies, created a distributed network that linked military computers together.

During 1940s and early 1950s, many of the graduate students and scientists at MIT and Lincoln Laboratory gained the preliminary experience necessary to create network computers. One of the engineers from Lincoln was Lawrence Roberts, who later became a founding father of the internet.

The first experimental network using internet-like technology involved four supercomputers and was built in 1969.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPAnet) was set up in 1969 and was one of the world's first operational packet switching networks. It evolved into several innovations in the early 1970s such as e-mail, a file transfer protocol that allows data to be sent in bulk and remote connecting service for network computers. As the project grew during the next decade, students were gained access to ARPAnet as hundreds of college and university networks were connected to it.

Starting in 1972, hundreds and then thousands of early users began to discover electronic mail as a new basis for communication.

In 1986, the NSF (National Science Foundation) launched the NSFNET backbone, a high speed network connection between six supercomputer centers running across the United States.

Within nine years, The NFSNET backbone grew from 6 nodes at 56 kbs to 21 nodes at 45 mbs, connecting 50,000 networks on all seven continents. In 1995 NSF turned the management of the World Wide Web portion of the internet over a group of public company.

The word internet entered the common lexicon in or about November 4, 1988 when many large American newspaper first mentioned the network in their coverage of computer.
History of internet

Google Maps

In February 2005, the Google Maps website was publicly launched. Like other commercial mapping services, such as MapQuest, Multimap and ViaMichelin, Google Maps offered mapping, directions and local search.

Google Maps is a web map server maintained by Google that provides high-resolution satellite imagery and aerial photography, international street-level data sets, and many map-based services.

Through the Google Maps Applications Programming Interface (API), the full Google Maps can be readily embedded on an external Web site for free. Google Maps provides users map navigation (zooming and panning), directions, 3D buildings, terrain and satellite views, traffic visualization and search.

Google Maps also available as a mobile application that provides navigation functionality for users on the go. Google Maps is an example of a hybrid system that render than base map layer on the server and interactive features (such as directing paths, search results, traffic patterns and 3D buildings) on the client.

Like many other Google web applications, Google Maps uses JavaScript extensively. As the user drags the map, the grid squares are downloading from the server and inserted into the page.
Google Maps

Characteristics of search

Designing and building a good search engine is a challenging task because of the requirements of scalability and performance. A robust search engine must be distributed over thousands or even tens of thousands machine.

The characteristics of search refer to how users search the internet. This can be everything from the heuristics they use when creating a search term to the selection the user makes after the search results are return.

The most important characteristics of search engine:
*Quality of results
*Actuality of results
*Speed of computing query
*Presentation of results
*Variety of results
*Formulating query
*Auto-correction

It is interesting to note that more than of American adults search the internet every time they go online; and in fact more people search the internet than use the yellow pages when they’re looking for phone numbers or the locations of local business.

Many web searching studies have been carried out to analyze the characteristics of searching on the web.

One type of study concentrates on the characteristics of search engines, such as coverage, overlap and dynamics, which could improve users’ understanding of web searching and thus help users found desired information.

Normally the search engine database of web pages are built and updated automatically by web crawlers.

Search engine do not cover the tire internet. Search engines do not index all file, formats and have a size limitation on file indexed.

When one is only searching the database that has been compiled by the search engine and this database, it is claimed, is likely to contain only a small percentage of the pages available on the web.

A search engine indexes everything without judgment, which is a pro but surely a con. The principle research rule of validating a source and it content cannot be stress enough when using a search engine.
Characteristics of search

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a Connection Oriented, End to End, Reliable protocol.

It was designed specially to provide a reliable logical circuit or connection, between application processes on different machines.

It establishes a connection and ensures that the other end receive any packets.

In the early 1970s, the internet was a small research network called ARPAnet. This network used a technology called Network Control Protocol NCP, which allowed hosts to connect to each other.

NCP did approximately the same job that TCP and IP do together today. Due to limitation in NCP, new protocol was developed to be better suited to a growing internetwork.

TCP is the IP-suite transport layer protocol that provides all the functions that a typical needs for a reliable transportation of data across an arbitrary internetwork with guaranteed delivery.

Once the devices have connected to each other, they can pass data bidirectionally between them.

In the first phase, a connection is set up between the two hosts which are to communicate. This stage called synchronization.

The second phase is a phase of data transfer. TCP undertakes acknowledgements of segments, as well as flow control and congestion control during the data transfer.

After the completion of data transfer, either of the two ends may close the close connection.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Internet service provider (ISP)

Internet service providers (ISPs) are selling basic internet access and some optional services. They make it possible for users to exchange e-mail and surf the web.

Like in a client-server model, the ISP provides the user@host account, which means that the ISP has manage the user’s addresses and applications-related protocols.

The services provided by ISPs fall into five broad categories: basic access, frontier access, networking, hosting and web page design.

The role of ISPs can vary from pure conduit for example, dial-up service and broadband, to pure publisher. ISPs may be content providers themselves, offering content to customers.

ISPs link people and business to the internet. Large providers that connect to national backbones have faster network connection and can deliver traffic through fewer router hops than local providers.
Internet service provider (ISP)

What is Hypertext Transfer Protocol?

Hypertext Transfer Protocol or HTTP is the protocol behind the World Wide Web. It is a system that hyperlinks geographically distributed multimedia documents.

HTTP is behind every request for a web document or graphic, every click of a hypertext link and every submission of a form.

The HTTP allows ‘documents’ to be created from multiple different text and image files, where each of these files may be stored on a different computer.

The web is about distributing information over the internet, and HTTP is the protocol used to do so. The client and servers interact with each other using the HTTP.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol is nowadays so widely used that word processing software like Microsoft Word automatically assumes the user intent to insert a hyperlink into a document whenever the user type a character string of web address.

Microsoft word automatically underlines the hyperlink, shades the text blue and underlines it.
What is Hypertext Transfer Protocol?

What is routing?

Routing is the act of forwarding network packets from a source network to a destination network.

The main reason that routing is desirable in a local network is an increase in scalability, giving a network the ability to handle more users without scarifying performance.

The routing process actually starts at the workstation: the local host initiating the communication. These hosts have their own route table. Route table is a data stored in router.

The purpose of the local route table is to provide the host with information about how to handle the forwarding of packets exiting the workstation.

Routing table provides a lookup entry for each destination by identifying an outgoing link/interface or a path.

One function of a router is packet filtering and classification. This means that beyond address lookup, a router is often required to handle packets differently depending on customer requirements.
What is routing?

Marketing on the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) refers specifically to that portion o the internet made up of servers that support a retrieval system that organize information into documents called web pages.

Its ability to transmit images, video, and sound has capture the imagination of the world.

Marketing on the World Wide Web offers potential benefits that are not available through traditional advertising media.

Majority of business forms are aware of the widespread accessibility of the World Wide Web and the most distinguishing aspect of its public participation. Potential customers and business partners expect companies to be accessible on the World Wide Web.

The broadcast nature of television, radio, billboard and print constraint a traditional marketing to one short, memorable message. With the World Wide Web, it allows for communicating to consumers substantially more content-rich product information.

The internet is used widely. It is relatively inexpensive. Service producers can create their own World Wide Web with several links for important information.
Marketing on the World Wide Web

What are URLs – Uniform Resource Locator?

URL is an acronym that stands for Uniform Resource Locator a standard way to specify the location of an electronic resource.

URL a common identifier used on the Web, URLs are absolute when the full path to the resource is indicated, and relative when a partial path is given that needs to be evaluated in relation who a base URL. 

The definition of a URL is derived from concepts introduce by the World Wide Web Global Information Initiative that have been in use since 1990. It is defined in Request for Comment (RFC) 1738, which was published in December 1994.

URLs make internet resources available to different internet protocol. It is very convenient, succinct way to direct people and applications to a file or other electronic resource.

It consists of letters, numbers and punctuation. The basic structure of URL is hierarchial and the hierarchy moves from left to right.
What are URLs – Uniform Resource Locator?

E-Government

E-Government
In the commercial sphere, business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C) and business to employee (BTE) electronic business has come widely accepted.

Government are also embracing the internet to provide services to business (G2B) and citizens (C2C), as well as government to government (G2G), citizen to citizen (C2C), government to supplier (G2S) and government to employee (G2E).

In year 2000 European Union Summit in Lisbon set ambitious goal of making Europe the world most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy. It resulted in the eEurope Action plan to exploit the full potential of the Internet to promote a competitive economy. The objective is to make it easier to deal with local, regional and national governments by making services available electronically.

The benefits of e Government are reduced costs through more efficient processes, the integration of disparate agencies systems, and improved service to citizens via the internet and other electronic channels.

Investment by government will also decrease the cost of doing business through simplification of procedures self-service systems and one stop shop for enterprises. The biggest beneficiaries here will be the small to medium enterprises, which are the backbone of the European economy.
E-Government

Definition of Internet Commerce

The internet is redefining relations between businesses and consumers enabling companies to sell their products and services around the globe on an unprecedented scale.

Shoppers can buy online at their convenience at any time and from anywhere.

It is necessary to distinguish terms e-commerce, e-business and internet commerce at the very start of the discussion.

There is a range of definitions for e-commerce relative to its perspective, may it be communications, business process, service or in the context of on-line business.

E-commerce can be defined as “the buying and selling of information, products and services via computer networks”.

While e-commerce encompass business activities that is conducted electronically, such as using the world wide web, the multimedia interactive component of the internet, telephone lines, leased lines and wireless, e-business can be understood as a superior set which extends the understanding of e-commerce to reflect the vision of the organization.

The goods or services are ordered over the internet, but the payment or ultimate delivery of the good or service may be conducted on or off line.

Internet or the information superhighway, has been well understood as the enabler or the enabling technology.

Subsequently, internet commerce refers to the marketing, selling and buying of products and services on the internet.
Definition of Internet Commerce

E-Learning

E-Learning
In order for web-based e-learning to provide a satisfactory learning environment, it is necessary to make available to user’s computer with sound capability (including headset or loudspeaker) and an internet connection with reasonable speed.

E-learning is also a great tool for repetitive training. Even of users were trained at some point in time. Chances are that they did not frequently use all the features of the software and they will forget certain parts of it.

With all the course modules residing on a web site, the users can log on and retake specific course modules at any time.

Most e-learning providers will offer courses on a per- time basis or on a subscription basis.

If you have a customized or home grown in Business Intelligence solution and no e-learning provider yet offers courses for your software, you can create your own online course and put them on your website, intranet or local area network.

This option can also be if great value if you need to train large number of users in a few modules and you need to show them specific features and functionability.

Depending on the resource available in your organization and their skill level, course development can be handled by your own team, or outsourced to the e-learning software vendor or a consultant.

Depending on the quality required and the amount of custom animations, graphics, and the like that are used, one hour online courses can cost form a few thousand to $50,000 to develop.

The key is to evaluate the cost/benefit and then pick the best alternative.

There is also some very inexpensive and easy-to-use software you or a power user can utilize to create the course yourself.

It all depends on how many people will use the sources and how long they can be used before they are out of date, as well as the time and resources you have available.

Software training (like Business Intelligence) lends itself very well to online courses because you will see that actual screens you will be using in real life, with information, buttons, and menus residing on a screen, and what can be better than showing the real screens and a mouse clicking on items while an instructor’s voice is explaining in the background?
E-Learning

Privacy on the Internet

The internet is the notorious for giving its users a feeling of anonymity, when in actuality, they are highly visibly and open to violation of their privacy.

Most of the internet and its World Wide Web, E-mail, chat, and newsgroup are still a wide open, unsecured electronic frontier with no tough rules on what information is personal and private.

Information about internet users is captured legitimately and automatically each time you visit a website or newsgroup and recorded as a “cookie file” on your hard disk.

Then the website owners, or online auditing services, may sell the information from cookie files and other records of your internet use to third parties.

To make matter worse, much of the net and web are easy targets for the interception or theft by hackers of private information furnished to websites by internet users.

Of course, users can protect their privacy in several ways. For example, sensitive E-mail can be protected by encryption, if both E-mail parties use compatible encryption software built into their E-mail programs. 

Newsgroup posting can be made privately by sending them through anonymous remailers that protect user identity when added comments to a discussion.

Internet service provider can be asked not to sell name and personal information of the user to mailing list providers and other marketers.

Finally, user can decline to reveal personal data and interests on online service and website user profiles to limit user exposure to electronic snooping.
Privacy on the Internet