E-commerce activity is booming. Microsoft Site Server 3.0, Commerce Edition can help you corner your own piece of the market.
Get a Piece of the Pie
E-commerce activity is booming. Microsoft Site Server 3.0, Commerce Edition can help you corner your own piece of the market.
The boom in online commerce is here. According to Forrester
Research, online retail transactions are a $4 billion
activity and are estimated to reach $17 billion in the
next four years. Online retail is a small piece of the
larger pie for online business, which Forrester pegs at
$8 billion today, growing to $327 billion by 2002.
To serve this market, Microsoft offers Site Server 3.0,
Commerce Edition, an Internet server optimized for Microsoft
Windows NT with Internet Information Server. It enables
businesses to engage and transact with customers and partners
online via commerce sites and applications, targeted online
advertising and marketing, and personalized promotions.
Based on strong integration with Windows NT Server, Site
Server Commerce integrates easily into existing systems
and provides secure and scalable order capture, management,
and routing for businesses. It also helps business managers
analyze usage data and implement changes to maximize effectiveness.
Site Server Commerce in Action
Direct selling is the most popular use of Site Server
Commerce today. Major online retailers like Barnesandnoble.com,
Dell Computer Corp., Eddie Bauer, The Gap, and Office
Depot use it for this purpose—as do small- and medium-sized
companies including Holt, 1-800-Flowers, and The Orvis
Company.
The second major use of Site Server Commerce is for corporate
purchasing of non-production (“indirect”) goods
and services. At Microsoft, we’re using Site Server
Commerce for our internal Microsoft Market. It has boosted
productivity, cut purchase order costs to just $5 per
order (compared to the industry average of $60), and enabled
us to reassign 25 people. We’ve replicated this model
and made it a starter site in Site Server Commerce. You
can use the starter site as a springboard for your own
custom development, or you can work with our ISV partners,
such as Commerce One, to obtain a comprehensive out-of-box
corporate purchasing solution based on Site Server Commerce.
The third way in which we see Site Server Commerce being
used is for value-chain trading. This involves the procurement
of production (“direct”) items or movement of
finished products across the value chain. Merisel, for
example, is using Site Server Commerce’s new Commerce
Interchange Pipeline architecture to give its 25,000 resellers
direct access to inventory and online purchasing. In this
way, Merisel’s inventory also becomes the resellers’
own, virtual inventory.
Multiple Uses
There are various ways you can help your clients use
Site Server Commerce. Some companies want to host their
own commerce sites. Others want dedicated hosting by a
solution provider. Still others want a commercial provider
hosting multiple customers. Site Server Commerce can fit
into any of these profiles.
How can you learn more? Guides, product details, case
studies, and an evaluation version of Site Server Commerce
are available at www.microsoft.com/siteserver/commerce.
I invite you to take a look. Also, look for certification
exams by early 1999 as part of the new Microsoft Certified
Solution Developer and MCP+Site Building tracks.
About the Author
Rebekkah Kumar is Product Manager for Microsoft Commerce Marketing at Microsoft.