IBM Builds NetCommerce Product

IBM Builds NetCommerce Product

Ray Van Eng (05/08/96)

IBM is introducing the NetCommerce product designed to provide an end-to-end solution for merchants to set up electronic storefronts for Internet commerce using credit cards as the preferred payment method.

NetCommerce consists of three parts: a browser utility for the consumer and two server products, one for merchants and the other for banks use. The merchant server will run on a new secure web server that IBM will introduce shortly and will include tools for building, cataloging and managing an online storefront. A "payment" Gateway server will allow banks to link up the merchant system and provide security and encryption services. On the client side, a browser plug-in will host an electronic "wallet" for storing various digital credit cards.

Although the NetCommerce system is already in use since March this year at the official 1996 Olympic Games web site to handle the sale of more than 32,000 tickets to consumers to various events of the upcoming Summer Olympic in Atlanta, GA., IBM says that the new product will enter beta testing in June and will become generally available by the third quarter of this year. The NetCommerce system will be based on indsutrial standards such as the SET (Secure Electronic Transactions) specifications from Visa and MasterCard and the Joint Electronic Payment Initiative.

A number of major catalog vendors (most notably L.L. Bean) are signing up with IBM to use the NetCommerce product. However, IBM won't be the only major vendor to provide SET based solutions to merchants and retailer, Microsoft and orthers are working on similar ventures. IBM's Olympic Games web site can be reached at http://sales.atlanta.olympic.org.

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