Foreword

Hewlett-Packard has been helping customers to implement information technology for 60 years. In the last years, most of these projects have involved Internet technologies although, in its own typical modest manner, the company has not talked too much about this to the outside world. But just consider the following examples:

• More than 70% of Internet nodes are managed by HP OpenView.
• Over 70% of all Internet bank transactions run on HP Servers.
• More than 120 Internet banks run on HP's secure Web-server HP Virtual Vault.

Half of the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) infrastrucutures, being established by credit card processors, are being implemented by HP with its subsidiary Verifone. HP also provided and operated the complete IT set-up for the 1998 World Cup, handling everything from ticket management to electronic commerce. This was the largest and busiest single internet event in history (as documented in the Guinness Book of Records) and it went off 'flawlessly', as the IT Manager of the French Organizing Committee commented after the event.

Now these projects are typically managed and implemented by local customer facing organizations, backed up with deeper technical expertise by a central organization for the European Region, as we call it, based in Böblingen, Germany. Daniel Amor has been part of this central team for several years, contributing to many different projects, in particular Internet business implementations at numerous customers, too numerous for me to mention. So he has gained a vast experience of electronic commerce implementations of all types.

Now in performing such a role as Daniel's, it is always very tempting to concentrate on the details only and to neglect the 'big picture': why is the customer doing this, what difference will the project make to other aspects of its business. As this book shows, Daniel has always been aware of these aspects. In fact, he combines the experience of someone who knows about Internet business 'hands-on' (knows the pitfalls, what the products can really do and what they cannot do) with the general understanding that business are also fundamentally changing because of the endless possibilities of the Internet as a communications and transactional medium.

This combination is to be found in many Hewlett-Packard people and serves as the basis for our newly-announced E-Services strategy. Here, HP has articulated a compelling vision of where business are heading with new business models for all of us and new ways of delivering IT. HP has also substantiated this vision with an important new technological contribution: e-speak.

I would like to congratulate Daniel on this book and wish you, the reader, a pleasant and informative read as he takes you into this new world and helps you to understand how this will affect your businesses and your lives. I am confident that you will be much better prepared for this new world after reading the book.

Peter O'Neill
European Marketing Manager Electronic Commerce
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Computing Organization