E-Commerce and Its Real-Time Requirements: Modeling E-Commerce as a Real-Time System

Abstract

E-commerce is a product of the Internet, often known as the fourth information revolution (following writing in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago, the written book in China 3300 years ago, and Gutenberg’s printing in 1455). The keynote will address the e-commerce revolution and its requirements. Instead of the traditional bipartite business supply chains linking suppliers, customers, and intermediaries, e-supply chains connect suppliers, consumers, and intermediaries alike directly to an on-line market place using the Internet, forming a “star” Internet/Web-centric commerce system. This effectively shifts the balance of power from vendors to consumers, making the need for responsive and adaptive just-in-time business models more critical. This paper will discuss the technical requirements of e-commerce, such as interoperability, reliability, accessibility, timeliness, and security. In particular, the presentation will show how e-commerce can often be modeled by a real-time system and hence solutions to these requirements can be more readily formulated.

This material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Award No. IRI-9526004, by the Texas Advanced Research Program under Grant No. 3652270, and by a grant from the University of Houston Institute of Space Systems Operations.