A Grand Opening For Virtual Storefronts With Middleware
 By Barry Nance
In the movie The Net, Sandra Bullock's character used her Web browser and an Internet connection to buy pizza. Internet/intranet commerce is no longer confined to film.
You can now buy airline tickets and computer equipment, make hotel reservations, select music recording bargains and arrange a whole new wardrobe via the Internet. Many large companies are developing internal (intranet-based) systems for ordering parts, so that they can keep their assembly lines running at optimal speed. Electric utility companies can even buy and sell electricity over th
e Internet.
Until recently, electronic commerce consisted mostly of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the intercompany routing of sales orders and confirmations. While EDI is still a big part of electronic
commerce, retail-level electronic commerce is emerging on the Web.
A transaction-based affair, Web-based commerce incorporates a secure connection for your browser and a Web server, software acting as a commerce server, a database that tracks products, records and sales transactions, and a connection to a credit-card company or bank.
 To view the Report card.
Commerce server software accepts your order, decrements on-hand inventory, arranges shipping (fulfillment) and, depending on how you'd like to pay for your purchase, sends a debit transaction to your financial institution. The commerce software also offers application programming
interface (API) hooks that third-party vendors can use to add value to the online sales environment.
As the different software components interact, it's the middleware--the software connectivity plumbing--that enables the components to work together seamlessly.
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We invited IBM Corp., Lotus Development Corp., Microsoft Corp., Netscape Communications Corp., Open Market and Oracle Corp. to participate in this review. All offer commerce server software with middleware components. Microsoft sent us its Merchant Server product, while IBM shipped Net.Commerce software. Microsoft obtained the Merchant Server technology by acquiring eShop, a company known for its electronic commerce expertise, last June. IBM developed Net.Commerce as an in-house effort.
Unfortunately, Oracle's commerce server software, code-named Apollo, was in beta tests and not ready in time. Apollo is a plug-in "cartridge" for Oracle's Web Application Server product. Similarly, Lotus' Domino.Merchant product, an
nounced at the end of January, wasn't available in time for testing. Lotus did say, however, that Domino.Merchant will interoperate with IBM's Net.Commerce to provide customers with the features of both products.
Saying its product is a $60,000,
heavily customized package requiring both on-site installation and configuration by a Netscape representative, Netscape declined our invitation to participate in this review. In January, Netscape withdrew its LivePayment product from the market, and it now seems interested in selling commerce software to the business-to-business market but not to the retail market. Similarly, Open Market excused itself from the review by describing its product as a $250,000, tailored-for-every-customer, high-end product.
To test the middleware aspects of these electronic commerce products, we set up an online store with two Windows NT Server machines, one acting as a Web server and commerce server, and the other acting as a database server. For Merchant Server, we used Microsof
t's Internet Information Server (IIS) and SQL Server, while for Net.Commerce we used a Netscape Web server and IBM's DB2/NT relational database manager. A PC running Windows95 played the role of administrative workstation (a local client), and 10 intranet-connected client PCs running Windows95 were the customers who purchased items from our store. We didn't connect our pretend store to a real financial institution.
In our testing, we found IBM's Net.Commerce offers the most bang for the (electronic) buck. From a middleware perspective, Net.Commerce offers built-in features, such as the latest version of Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) that Merchant Server doesn't yet provide without third-party support (see "Leveraging the SSL and SET Protocols" on page 90). In addition, IBM's networking infrastructure (such as the IBM Global Network) is available to Net.Commerce customers who need to implement EDI, for example.
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