Electronic commerce is poised to grow, according to an IBM Corp Internet commerce chief, Dr Mark Greene, vice-president of electronic commerce in the recently-created Internet division of IBM. Stating that over $200m had changed hands on-line last year, he told Internet World 96 delegates recently that this was a small amount compared to the volume of business done using major credit cards. He liberally estimated transactions ranging between $3,000m and $150,000m over the next four years and said $1,000,000m was an achievable target by 2010. Visa International Inc transactions currently total around $10,000,000m a year. Clearly we’re just getting started, he said, and yet we believe that there’s huge growth coming reasonably soon. Internet security is seen as the biggest stumbling block even though security experts scorn users’ fear of using credit card numbers over the Internet when those same users are happy to entrust them to waiters or give them out over the phone. Greene expects concern to be allayed by the end of the year when there is likely to be a single, reliable standard for communicating credit card information over the Internet. The speed of Internet connections is another issue that will also be addressed as 14.4Kbps modems give way to 28.8Kbps units, then to cable modems and Integrated Services Digital Network connections, he said.
