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Provides information on Ventro Corp. and VerticalNet Inc., pioneers in electronic commerce. Desire of the two companies to become software and service providers for companies launching private and public exchanges; Finance of the companies; Software products; Comments on the companies. INSET: VerticalNet Takes Aim At E-Commerce.

Focuses on the problems faced by business-to-business electronic commerce providers in providing interoperable software suites for the market. Software products of Ariba and Commerce One Inc.; Specialty of other software vendors; Efforts of INC2inc to develop an interoperable software product. INSET: NEW XML ADDS FLEXIBILITY TO E-COMMERCE.

Reports the impact of customer-relationship management (CRM) tools to online business partners. Benefits of CRM for business commerce; Importance of customer record-tracking to the online success of business. INSETS: What To Look For When Shopping For A CRM Suite;Vendors Broaden CRM Offerings With Products, Mergers.

Features several electronic commerce companies selected by `InternetWeek' periodical as the startups to watch in 1999. Neoforma Inc.; TriStrata Inc.; Oblix Inc; Keynote Systems Inc.; Trade'ex Electronic Commerce Systems Inc.; USinternetworking Inc.; UWI.com; InterTrust Technologies Corp.; Extricity Software Inc.; Chemdex Corp.

Discusses the benefits of catalog management software. Services of the FastXchange Inc.; Criteria for catalog management software; Importance of catalog update and aggregation on electronic commerce.

Traces the efforts of brokerage Charles Schwab & Co. in offering electronic trading in the United States. Introduction of the firm's Web site in the summer of 1995; Start of 336,000 online accounts in the last months of 1995; Hardware and software used; Support by management and information technology employees; Plan for 80 to 90 percent of trades to occur online with a rate of four million transactions in an hour.

Focuses on Internet auctions as a quick and easy entry point for trading hubs that are ramping up vertical electronic commerce sites. MetalSite as a business trading hub for the metals industry; Auctions as a low-risk opportunity for sellers to enter the electronic commerce market; Growth patterns of players in the electronic marketplace arena; Associated services required for business-to-business auctions.

Discusses the transformation of online procurement by the growth of online auctions, trading hubs and electronic marketplaces. Costs spent by supermarket chains in procurement annually; Expansion of the operators of online procurement services through acquisitions and partnerships; Additional online procurement to the informational marketplaces of VerticalNet.

Reports that several companies in the United States are upgrading their electronic business infrastructure to accommodate escalating Web traffic. Enhancement of the companies' hardware, network infrastructure, and applications to eliminate costly outages and prepare for future demands; Varied infrastructure buildup approaches of the companies.

Reports on the Internet product and business integration efforts in Nortel Networks, the company formed by the merger of Northern Telecom and Bay Networks. Development of high-end routers to fill holes in service provider and large enterprise offerings; Comment by John Roth, chief executive officer and vice chairman of Nortel. INSET: Bay-Nortel recipe..

Discusses the changes created by Internet-based selling on the roles of business middlemen and product distribution channels. Factors driving Internet-based purchase and sales models; Examples of industries offering Web sites to customer for direct access to information on their products; Facts on Dell phenomenon. INSET: Charles Schwab trades big in....

Profiles Rusty Braziel, founder and chairman of Altranet Technologies Inc. Business model of the company; Estimated annual revenue for 2000; Competitors of the firm; Plans for Altranet Technologies.

Profiles Vani Kola, founder of RightWorks. Performance of the company under her management; Investors of the company; Information on NthOrbit, a company which provide funding for new companies; Business management strategy of Kola.

Reports on the trend towards outsourcing of electronic commerce projects among companies in the United States due to competition. Ensuring of fastest possible time to market; Strategies of information technology organizations.

Reports on Ames Department Stores Inc.'s plan to launch an electronic commerce site that aims to convert visitors to its information-only Web site into buyers. Executive involvement in the company's Internet strategy; Demographics of Ames' existing customer base; Outsourcing of application development, operations and hosting; Pursuit of a customer-centric merchandising strategy.

Focuses on the online trading hub trend among industries. Concept of Infomediaries; Relevance of trading hubs; Creation of electronic catalogs and automated procurement conduits; Revenues generated by vertical market trading hubs; Views about the vertical portals; Factors affecting the success of trading hubs; Consolidation of business trading hubs.

Focuses on the importance of the application of outsourcing in business enterprises. Relevance of market segmentation; Assets generated in application outsourcing; Cost savings from electronic-commerce partnerships; Construction of application-hosting CyberCenters; Management of outsourcing application. INSET: Why Outsource?.

Focuses on the electronic commerce strategies of Intelligroup Inc. and Sapient Corp. Launching of the support and maintenance service for enterprise resource planning installations by Intelligroup; Package solutions developed for various industries by Sapient.

Reports that Prudential Insurance Co. of America and First Union Corp. are initiating pilot deployments of an object-oriented management system designed to report on the state of information technology systems and business processes. Accessible Software Inc.'s Access 1.

Highlights the results of an online survey of information technology (IT) professionals in the United States. Salaries of managers and staffers; Competition to hire IT managers; Demand for IT professionals; Financial performance of IT companies.

Reports on Cisco Systems and Ford Motor Co.'s expression of their commitment to Netscape Directory Service, a directory that natively supports the standard security and data exchange capabilities in LDAP version 3.0. Authentication of partners and users; Schema negotiations between directories that enable exchange of user information; Customized access control and replication.

Focuses on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal mandate requiring hospitals in the United States to upgrade privacy and security systems for electronic transmission of patient information. Slated schedule when the federal mandate is likely to require compliance within the healthcare industry; Concerns of healthcare information technology managers regarding the proposed ruling.

Reports on the profitability of several online business trading hubs in the United States. Sales volume generated by Neoforma Inc. from December 1997 to 1998; Total number of suppliers of scientific research materials attracted by Chemdex Corp.; Success of MetalSite.

Presents an interview with Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of Novell Inc. Novell's plan to capitalize on the momentum generated by Cisco Systems' endorsement of Novell Directory Services (NDS); Scope of NDS in terms of features and market penetration; Strategies for Java and the Internet; Impact of the Department of Justice's actions regarding Microsoft Corp.

Reports on the alliance among America Online (AOL) Inc., Netscape Communications Corp., and Sun Microsystems Computer Corp. in pursuit of Internet industry dominance. AOL's acquisition of Netscape, which will remain a separate entity; Sun's agreement to resell Netscape's software in exchange for a commitment from AOL to buy Sun hardware and services; Potentials of portals to become a one-stop enterprise platform.

Reports on Cisco Systems Inc.'s support for Novell Directory Services, which will enable the company to manage switches and routers from a single directory. Growth of the need for directory-enabled management; Benefits of users from decision of Cisco to used Novell Directory Services.

Reports on Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s construction of a Web-based network that links the company with its customers and other suppliers of gas and electricity across the Pacific Coast. Benefits of the move to Pacific Gas and its energy services program customers; Expansion of the use of the existing SAP R/3 business applications.

Presents an interview with Ascend Communications Chief Executive Officer Mory Ejabat on the company's strategies and products. Significance of the acquisition of Stratus Computer; Strategy for voice-over Internet protocol; Move to reduce operational costs for service providers.

Reports on various telecommunication products to be released by Ascend Communications until December 1998. Includes the multiservice access switch for terminating diverse high-speed access services; Variety of Digital Subscriber Loop concentrators for high speed access; Upgrades to the Navis management software.

Presents an interview with Cisco Systems President and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers. Strategy for continued growth; View of the Northern Telecom-Bay Networks merger; Consolidation trend in the data communication market; Firm's emphasis on service providers.

Reports that the medical field is reporting dramatic cost savings as a result of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) deployments. Better patient care as a result of ATM; Experience of the University of Denver Hospital; Reduction of time to get radiological and laboratory reports; Reliability and total fail-safe redundancy required by the hospital.

Reports on the plans of Argon Networks Inc. and Cisco Inc. to release hybrid asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches and Internet protocol (IP) routers with gigabit and terabit horsepower. Argon's planned introduction of GigaPacket Node routing switch which will support 64 different OC-48 interfaces; Cisco's plan to produce new-generation Gigabit Switch Router with high switching capacity.

Focuses on the use of Lotus Notes/Domino-based applications by major business enterprises. Use of technology by Prudential Insurance Co. for online catalogs; Use of technology as basis for core business applications and communications by Circuit City Stores Inc.; Use of technology by IBM for intranet, extranet for its re-engineering efforts.

Focuses on the benefits of Java technology for CSX Corp. Installation of the technology to the company's Transportation Workstation Net business-to-business commerce site; Benefits offered by Java technology in the company's construction of TWSNet Premium supply chain management application; Directions for customers' utilization of CSX's commerce site.

Discloses Cabletron chief executive officer Don Reed's recovery plan to strengthen the company's market position. Generation of a new version of the company's Spectrum management platform; Price improvements on the company's application-specific integrated circuits and denser port cards; Shift toward an indirect sales model; Launching of the company's electronic-commerce Web site.

Features CSX Corp.'s intranet developed to transform its core customer-tracking and shipment-transportation Windows app to Java. Use of a comprehensive set of Java applets; Results of such application; Intranet manager; Intranet traffic.

Focuses on measures employed by companies to protect their intranets and extranets against intruders. Building of fortress around each department and subnet; Installation of small firewalls and secure virtual private networks to corporate networks; Consolidation and integration of firewalls with VPN devices.

Anticipates Cabletron's unveiling of an electronic-commerce Web site that could become the primary conduit for sales. Use of the site to strengthen the company's sliding market presence; Site as a medium for selling Cabletron's wares to customers; Components of the company's site; Cabletron's partnership with GTE to host its site and Calico Technology for online product configuration.

Focuses on the challenges facing corporate information technology departments in protecting their servers from hackers and intruders. Shift in vulnerability from the network to the servers between 1998 and 2000; Increase in demand for products to solve vulnerabilities in servers; Impact of the emerging multifaceted role of traditional servers on server security; Growing popularity of third-party security tools.

Presents an interview with Paul Wahl, chief executive officer of SAP America Inc. Product modification efforts by SAP America; Enhancements in version R/3 4.0; Beta testing of version 4.0.

Deals with the demand for Internet access from businesses and consumers that keep Internet service providers (ISPs) and carriers to met the demand of customers. Problems faced by ISPs and carriers in meeting the demand of customers; Companies that are planning to developed a terabit packet networking devices; Devices to be released in 1998.

Focuses on United States federal government agencies' electronic commerce programs as of November 3, 1997. Details of the Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA) electronic mall program; US General Services Administration's (GSA) GSA Advantage program.

Looks at Netscape Communications Corp.'s vision for a single enterprise applications architecture as according to its cofounder and executive vice president for products Marc Andreessen. Lightweight Directory Protocol 3.0 as the linchpin of the company's vision; Partnerships with other major software companies for this vision; Favorable response of users and industry experts to this approach. INSET: A new extranet-enhanced proxy server..

Reports on Yago Systems Inc.'s plan to ship in 1998 a switching router that lets users allocate network resources down to individual applications and expand quality of service and remote management to users of corporate extranets. Comparison with a similar router from Cisco; Features and capabilities; Pricing.

Presents an interview with World Wide Web Consortium chairman Jean-Francois Abramatic. Promotion of electronic commerce; Vision for the future use of the Web; Issues on Internet interoperability.

Presents an interview with World Wide Web Consortium director Tim Berners-Lee. Factors that will drive electronic commerce over the Internet; Role of the consortium in the industry; Specific technologies targeted by the consortium; Issues on Internet security.

Profiles Jayshree Ullal, general manager and vice president of the switching group of Cisco Systems. Corporate ventures in which Ullal is involved; Career background of Ullal; Achievements.

Profiles Dave Hollander, co-inventor of the extensible markup language (XML). Goals for the XML technology; His role as chief technology officer at Contivo Inc.

Deals with 20th Century Fox's construction of an intranet to track the millions of records associated with box-office receipts. Number of months consumed in developing the intranet; Cost of the intranet; Benefits of the intranet to Fox; Procedure of data collection in Fox before the intranet.

Reports on Equifax's credit-card processing unit's deal with EDS Corp. to handle Web-based credit-card payments and electronic banking services. Computer systems used by Equifax Payment Services; Enhancement of electronic commerce software.