Welcome to the second edition of the book. During the past couple of years, electronic commerce has continued to evolve. The unabated convergence of telecommunication and computing has narrowed the gap between the access of information stored on network through desktop devices and mobile devices. Much of the variety of the information that was available to the user in electronic commerce environment is also available to the user in mobile commerce environment. Yet, there are several issues that force the content providers to optimize and tailor the content to make it suitable for the mobile environment.

It has been a pleasant surprise that the book has been adopted by a large number of institutions as a text or reference book for the electronic commerce courses. Apart from adoption by MBA programs for the electronic commerce courses, a large number of faculty members and students of various Technical Universities have also found it greatly useful book of their MCA and B Tech. courses on electronic commerce. In order to bridge the gaps based on feedback received from many of you, a chapter of Electronic Data Interchange has also been added in the book.

The second edition of the book is organized in fourteen chapters rather than twelve chapters, followed by a case that illustrates the applications of technology and business strategy in an Internet start-up organization Fabmart.com. The edition comes with two new cases.

The initial popular assumption that Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) will get completely replaced by Internet based Electronic Commerce technologies have not materialized. Instead, the low cost availability of Internet has given a new lease of life to the EDI technology. Using the advantage of the open channels of the Internet and standardized coding, EDI has been able to broaden the reach. Chapter 3 of this edition covers the operations and variety of management and technology issues associated with the EDI.

The adoption of electronic ticketing by Indian Railways over Internet has been a great convenience and relief to the network connected customers and has found a great deal of acceptance. The initial online payment approach adopted was based on credit-cards. The mechanism levied three percent charges for the use of the credit card on customers, thus increasing the friction in the electronic transaction. In order to surmount the price barrier, the Indian Railways and banks have adopted a new online payment mechanism called ‘e-rail’. A new case titles “SBI eRAIL and Online Payment for Railway Tickets” has been added at the end of Chapter 10: Electronic Payment Systems.

Chapter thirteen introduces the universe of Mobile Commerce, its operational framework and business models that have been deployed in the marketplace. The operational framework covers the issued related to mobile connectivity, information distribution protocols, multimedia content publishing suited for the handheld devices, security and payment issues in a mobile environment. The chapter concludes with some important applications that have been rolled out.

I look forward to your continuous feedback in shaping the book to better serve the audience.

BHARAT BHASKER