E-commerce and e-Business Related

Amazon.com first to hire a 'Chief Algorithms Officer'
Amazon has always been a company to watch closely, due to its pioneering success in the tough field of ecommerce, and the way it is progressing in Web services and application development. But now, the company is transforming itself from an online store to a high-tech firm, and is making big waves in the high-technology community. At its nine massive distribution centers from Fernley, Nev., to Bar Hersfeld, Germany, workers scurry around the clock to fill up to 1.7 million orders a day -- picking and packing merchandise, routing it onto conveyors, and shipping the boxes to every corner of the world. Like any retail warehouse running manpower and machinery at full holiday throttle, it's an impressive display. But utterly misleading. The kind of work that will truly determine Amazon's fate is happening in places like the tiny, darkened meeting room at its Seattle headquarters where, one recent afternoon, five intent faces gazed at a projection screen. Jeffrey A. Wilke, a compact, intense senior vice-president who runs Amazon's worldwide operations and customer service, and an engineering team were trying out a "beta" or test version of new software they wrote. When the buying automation program is ready for prime time in mid-2004, Amazon's merchandise buyers will be able to chuck reams of spreadsheets for graphics-rich applications that crunch data for them, so they can more quickly and accurately forecast product demand, find the best suppliers, and more.

US online payment industry to grow to $12.5 billion
Celent Communications anticipates the online payment industry in the US will grow significantly over the next few years, rising to $12.5 billion in revenues by 2005. Celent finds online payment revenues totaled $8 billion by the end of last year. Celent surveyed over 100 online payment industry executives for its “Online Payments in the US: Navigating the Marketplace,” report. The report notes the share e-checks have on e-commerce will grow from just 3% in 2000 to 9% in 2005. Indeed consumers are interested in more online payment options, as PaymentOne determined in April 2003, 24% of US consumers would like simpler and easier ways to pay online and 11% are looking for more payment methods, indicating significant opportunity for the online payments market.

Survey: businesses of all sizes expect to see high ROI from RFID
If the results from a survey released by Accenture are to be accurate, close to half of North American manufacturing executives anticipate a high return on investment (ROI) from their radio frequency identification (RFID) investments. Since retailers such as Target in the U.S. and Wal-Mart have mandated that all of their top suppliers be outfitted with RFID tags — for some as early as 2005 — many organizations have spent the last few months determining what RFID can do for their organizations and how far they are willing to go with the technology. One industry observer warns, however, that companies are going to have to spend money to make money. One surprising finding from the survey was that although a full one-third of executives said they expect high ROI from their investment and nearly all — 86 per cent — said they believed RFID's greatest benefit would expand beyond the "four walls of individual organizations to the extended supply chain," the majority are still unconvinced of RFID's benefits, explained Steve Convey, a partner at Toronto-based Accenture. When it comes to analyzing the advantages RFID can bring to an organization, Christopher Boone, program manager for analytics firm IDC in Framingham, Mass., said companies usually fall into one of three categories and attitudes.

e-Commerce in France could be in danger
Development of the Internet in France will be endangered if a piece of legislation entitled a Bill to Promote Confidence in the Digital Economy becomes law, the Association of French Internet Access and Service Providers (AFA) said Tuesday. The association called on French Internet users to sign an online petition to show their opposition to the bill, which was approved by the French national assembly last Thursday. If the bill becomes law, it will force Internet service providers to filter Internet traffic and take responsibility for the content of Web pages they host, and will abolish e-mail's protected status as "private communication." This constitutes a menace to freedom of expression on the Internet, and endangers the 10,000 jobs and €2 billion (US$2.5 billion) annual revenue of the French Internet industry, AFA said in a statement.