1.4 Summary

In this chapter we summarized the two key areas this book focuses on: e-business applications and the XML technology. E-business systems are defined as applications that use Internet technology to improve business processes. We categorized e-business applications as being intra-business or inter-business systems, and we gave detailed descriptions of these categories. As a key example in intra-business applications, business-to-employee (B2B) systems, which facilitate information sharing within the company, were briefly introduced. The two main areas of inter-business cooperation are business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C).

B2B applications help companies in establishing electronic transactions and partnership over the Internet. They enhance business process automation, collaboration with other companies, and establish virtual markets and communities. B2C applications help companies to automate and enhance their customer relations. Using B2C solutions, companies can create and maintain information sites, automated customer service, help desks, electronic catalogs, and Web stores. These solutions help in marketing, sales and support.

The Extensible Markup Language is a key technology to build e-business applications, since it is a platform and vendor independent document standard for describing structured data. As a universal data format, it enables the seamless connection to business partner systems. It is based on an ISO industry standard (SGML), and it is created for Web use. In the second section of this chapter we introduced this technology, showing its key features and areas. We have also shown application examples, where XML was used to enhance business applications.

Finally, in the last part of the chapter, we summarized the impact of XML on e-business. We gave a list of advantages that XML provides in e-business, and we analyzed the relationships between the main XML features and the e-business applications.