The Electronic Commerce Trials Platform

• Authors: P. J. Wittgreffe;C. Dix
• Venue: BT Technology Journal
• Year: 1999

The electronic commerce trials platform provides an effective means to create and test new services incorporating the latest eCommerce technologies. Using the platform, a new service can be configured and launched within a typical timeframe of 60 days. The savings realised have made viable the trial of a range of new and innovative services, where the costs or time-scales for a fully fledged development would have been too prohibitive. Rapid development is achieved by reusing the latest eCommerce building blocks available on an internal test bed. Rapid launch is facilitated using a flexible hosting system that enables each service to operate in the desired network and server configuration. A continually growing portfolio of eCommerce functionality is supported, from payment services, to on-line catalogues, to more advanced components such as intelligent trading agents. The trials platform has claimed a number of recent successes, including Iceland‘s home shopping trial, on-line shopping in London with ‘The Food Ferry‘, the BT Argent micro-billing service, and on-line payments for Wireplay. This paper provides an overview of the platform, including a brief history, a summary of the technical architecture, and a discussion on the issues related to performing trials of this nature.