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Breadth Survey: Small Merchant Services
December 15, 1998

Service provider Accesspoint, Anaheim, CA Affordable Virtual Servers, Australia AIS Network, Schaumburg, IL. Alpine Development, Provo, UT American Data Technologies, Research Triangle Park, NC AnaServe, A Concentric Network Co., Newport Beach, CA Computer Connection's, Lynnwood, WA Data Matrix, West Chester, PA Extreme Web, Gambrills, MD Forman Interactive, New York, NY Hewitt Code Works, Fischers, IN iLand Internet Solutions Corp., Houston, TX Inet-Designing.com, Mikulov, Czech Republic Interland, Atlanta, GA. Internet Advertising Solutions, Lexington, KY Kendrick Jansen Company, Union City, CA Kraken Technologies, Tigard, OR Lonestar Interactive, El Paso, TX Netcetera, Isle of Man, British Isles Netcom Online Communications Services, San Jose, CA NetHost, Alberta, Canada OneHost, Fairfield, IA PairNet, Ames, IA Prime Consult, Springfield, VA Pro3.NET, Quincy, MA Sage Networks, Boston, MA Scotland-Net, Aberdeenshire, Scotland SDTek Web Services, Schofield Bks, HI Speedsoft, Arlington, TX Technology Horizons, Amherst, MA The Dover Group, Canoga Park, CA The Software Group, Moorpark, CA Tintagel Consulting, Stillwater, OK Virtual Web Communications, Atlanta, FA WWW Service Provider, Commerce City, CO Wythe Web Works, Hampton, VA
Contact numbers (714) 781-2288 612 4283 1582 (847) 882-0493 (801) 358-0890 (919) 544-4101 (949) 250-7262 (425)778-4776 (610) 701-5837 (410) 721-1372 (212) 627-4988 (317) 577-8937 (713) 610-3701 1-830-905-2105 (404) 586-9999 (606) 272-1403 (510) 475-1700 (503) 590-6578 (915) 856-7172 440-1624-612948 (408) 881-2000 (403) 308-3134 (515) 472-2189 N/A (703) 975-0391 (617) 376-2448 (617) 374-4700 1224-7911943 (808) 629-3760 (817) 419-0612 (413) 253-7700 (818) 407-4640 (805) 529-1919 (405) 707-8072 (770) 454-9938 (303) 426-6413 (757)-928-033
Sites hosted 100+ 500+ 20 79 1700+ 2,000 3 4 50 1,005 10 20 2 10,000 8 20 2 50 50 N/A 5 100 36 24 150 850 N/A N/A 20 25 152 20 N/A 3 200 26
Largest number of products at a single site 60,000 120 500 26 1,000 25,000 43 250 N/A 800 75 500 150 25,000 1,500 300 100s 1,200 100 1,000 20-30 N/A 200 175,206 1,000 1,000 N/A N/A 500 84,000 350 10 N/A 3 500 40
Percent business-to-business 20% 30% 20% 50% 50% 10% 0% 0% 70% 15% 0% 10% 1% N/A 30% 30% 50% 8% 50% 25% 10% 20% 0% 13% 60% 25% 43% 0% 10% 40% 5% 0% 20% 10% 20% 0%
Peak load (Mbps) 2.35 44 N/A 300 1.5 135 0.128 0.93 4 45 0.2 0.25 N/A N/A 125 15% of 1.54 MBPS 1 3 1.5 N/A 1.55 2.5 0.2 1.5 75 55 N/A N/A 30 5 45 5 N/A 10 20 35
Aggregate Mbps: primary facility 4 45 N/A 200 45 135 1.544 1.536 1.5 20 1.5 4.62 N/A 90 290 1.54 1.5 155 2 100 0.42 2 1.5 10 155 48 N/A 135 155 241 22 15 N/A 10 155 300
Certificate support Verisign Verisign N/A Verisign Verisign Verisign Verisign no Verisign other Verisign Verisign N/A Verisign other other other other Verisign Verisign Verisign other Verisign other other Verisign other other Verisign other Verisign no no Verisign Verisign other
Real-time credit card payment processing CyberCash CyberCash N/A CyberCash CyberCash CyberCash CyberCash no CyberCash CyberCash CyberCash CyberCash N/A CyberCash yes yes no no yes Payment Net no CyberCash CyberCash yes CyberCash yes CyberCash yes no yes yes no no CyberCash CyberCash no
Dedicate help-desk staff 4 5 N/A 5 2 12 2 1 1 8 0 2 N/A 30+ N/A 2 N/A 4 3 N/A N/A 2 2 2 10 30 4 1 1 2 14 N/A N/A 1 2 1
Full-time non-clerical 7 9 N/A 2 1 14 1 4 5 22 2 2 N/A 20+ N/A 3 N/A 5 2 N/A N/A 1 1 3 2 4 N/A 2 1 2 3 N/A N/A 2 1 N/A
Helpdesk hours Mon-Fri 9am-10pm 7am-10pm 8am-6pm 8am-6pm 7:30am-5:30pm 8am-midnight 8am-6pm (PST) 9am-5pm 9am-5pm/24 hr e-mail 8am-8pm N/A 8am-8pm N/A 24/7 N/A N/A N/A 8am-9pm 10hrs 24/7 N/A 8am-5pm 24/7 8am-6pm 9am-5pm 24/7 N/A 24/7 N/A 9am-9pm 24/7 N/A 24/7 8am-10pm 8am-5pm 24/7
Helpdesk hours weekend 10am-4pm Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 9am-5pm varies 8am-6pm 7:30am-5:30pm no 8am-6pm (PST) no 9am-5pm Sat10am-5pm, no Sun N/A Sat 10am-4pm, no Sun N/A 24/7 N/A N/A N/A Sat 8am-9pm, no Sun 10hrs 24/7 N/A no 24/7 no no 24/7 N/A 24/7 N/A Sat 9am-5pm, no Sun 24/7 N/A 24/7 8am-10pm no 24/7
Reimbursement for an outage 0 0 N/A free service for mo 0 99.5% uptime or free mo 0 0 0 0 one day/con't interruption >5min or 15min during entire day (some restrictions) N/A free service for mo for at least 5 days w/ outages of 5hrs or more 99.9% or month is free N/A N/A N/A varies N/A 0 N/A N/A 0 N/A free service for a month N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A free service for a month N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Period triggers reimbursement 0 0 N/A 30 min 0 99.5%=3.6 hours=216 minutes 0 0 0 0 5 min or over 15 min combined for the day N/A 5 or >days/mo w/o service for >5 hrs N/A N/A N/A N/A 60min N/A 0 N/A N/A 0 varies N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 60 min N/A N/A N/A 60 min N/A
Tools required for editing on merchant desktop browser (v4 or higher) Notepad (text editor) or MS FrontPage none email, browser FrontPage/miniVend/Cart32/DEW Cart/Perl Shop/NetObjects Fusion/Cold Fusion/ASP any HTML editor and FTP program HTML editor, FTP, browser browser (v4 or higher) HTML editor, FTP, or MS FrontPage Internet Creator no tools FrontPage98, Visual Interdev or Cold Fusion, FTP N/A any supported; recommend FrontPage Hosting or Soft Quad authoring software, browser HTML, browser web browser web browser, GUI HTML layout designer or text editor w/FTP client Microsoft FrontPage and Net-Store E-commerce Suite none are required. E-commerce services are provided server side. Java enabled Browser, ShopSite Plus HTML editor browser (v4 or higher) browser web page auhoring tools, FTP, text editors none browser; options for Allaire's Cold Fusion or MS FrontPage N/A none none optional MS Access for high-end catalog DB Frontpage98, FTP or other HTML editing tools, like Hotmetal none browser FTP and any authoring software HTML editor Wordpad and MS FrontPage option
Tools for viewing/manipulating reports browser (v4 or higher) browser browser email, browser browser, authoring tool custom stats or WebTrends (also ShopSite, INEX) browser or e-mail browser Leg Analysis Tool, browser WebTrends browser or ASCII download and import browser; sometimes MS Access w/SQL Server tables N/A browser, but Miva option browser browser browser browser browser WebTrends Shop Site plus browser browser browser, text editor browser browser N/A none browser browser or e-mail database software ( MS Access), browser browser browser N/A N/A browser or e-mail
Percent of dedicated servers 60% 5% 25% 12% 5% 5% 33% 0% 0% 20 0% 0% 98% >30 10% 20% 50% 0% 10% N/A 0% 1% 50% 25% 90% 35% N/A 0% 0% 10% 15% 5% 0% 100% 5% 0%
Customer tools to access packet delivery no no N/A no no yes no no no no no no N/A yes no no no no no no no no no no no yes no no no no no no no no no no
SLAs yes no N/A yes yes yes no no no no yes no N/A yes no no no yes no no no yes no no yes yes no no no no yes no no yes yes no
Server redundancy yes yes N/A no yes yes yes no no yes no yes N/A yes no no yes no yrs no yes yes no yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes no no no yes no
Network redundancy yes yes N/A no yes yes yes no yes yes no yes N/A yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Backup facility no yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes N/A yes no yes no yes yes yes no yes no yes yes yes no yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes
Cross-server dynamic load balancing yes yes N/A no yes yes no no no no no no N/A yes no no yes no yes no yes no no no yes yes no no no no no no no no yes yes
Offline store admin by merchant no yes N/A no yes yes no yes no yes yes yes N/A yes yes no yes yes yes no no no no no yes yes yes no yes yes yes no no no no no
Varied privacy levels for multi-store admins yes no N/A no yes no yes no no no no no N/A yes no no no yes yes no no yes no no no yes no no no no no no no no yes no
Site admin via templates yes no N/A yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes N/A yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes yes no no yes yes no no no no no
Site admin via browser yes yes N/A no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes yes
E-mail virus scan no no N/A no yes yes yes no yes no no no N/A yes no no no no no no no yes no no no yes yes no no no no no no no no no
Site design/development yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes yes yes yes no no
Customer yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes no no yes no yes yes no yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes
Site promotion yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes yes yes no no yes yes yes yes yes yes no
Search engine yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes yes no yes
Personalization pricing/content yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no N/A yes no no yes yes yes no yes yes no yes yes yes no yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes
Purchase limits by product no yes no no no yes no no yes yes no no N/A yes no no no no no no no yes no no yes no no no no no no no no yes no no
Credit card overuse check yes yes no no no yes no no yes yes no no N/A yes no yes no no no no yes no no yes no no no no no no no no no yes no no
SAP no no no no no no no no no no no no N/A no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
People-soft no yes no no no no no no no no no no N/A no no no no no no no yes no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
Oracle Financials no no no no no no no no no no no no N/A no no no yes no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no
Order status provisioning yes yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes no no N/A yes yes no yes no yes no no yes yes yes no yes yes no no yes no no no no no no
E-mail notice of shipment no yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes no yes N/A yes yes yes no no yes no yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no no yes
Consumer/assoc. member tracking yes no N/A yes no yes no no no no no no N/A yes no no no yes no no no yes yes no no yes no no no no no no no no no no
Frequent buyer support yes no N/A no no yes no no no yes no no N/A yes no yes no no no no yes yes no yes no yes yes no no no no no no no yes no
E-mail alert notification yes yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes no yes yes yes yes no yes yes no yes no no yes yes
Consumer update registration change info yes no N/A yes no yes no no yes yes no yes N/A yes no no no yes no no no no no yes no yes no no no yes no no no no no no
Digital goods fulfillment yes yes N/A yes no yes yes no no yes no no N/A yes no yes no yes yes no yes yes no yes no yes no yes no no yes no no no no no
Physical goods fulfillment yes no N/A no no yes yes yes no no no yes N/A yes no no no yes yes yes no yes no yes no yes no no no no no no no no no no
Purchase order yes yes N/A no yes yes no yes yes no no no N/A yes yes yes yes no yes no yes yes no no no yes yes no yes yes no no no no yes yes
Invoice yes yes N/A no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes N/A yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes yes