A Good Ecommerce Textbook   April 16, 2003

Teachers - the book says it has the usual instructor supplements for classroom teaching as well as online teaching, but I haven't seen them yet. I am using the stuff from the 3rd edition to prepare for my summer class - you will probably need to choose wisely as you review these supplements since they are of mixed quality. I am giving the book 4 stars instead of 5 since I can't vouch for the supplemental materials at this point.


Best and Most Current Textbook Available   November 6, 2000
  15 out of 15 found this review helpful

This is, without a doubt, the best and most current textbook on electronic commerce that is available today (and I understand these authors are planning to have a second edition of the book completed by February 2000 - which should be even MORE current).

The book offers a balanced business-technology approach to the subject of e-commerce and include a great overview of both relevant technologies and business/revenue models. The book includes important issues like legal and international concerns and even has a great little section on managing and staffing Web development projects in the last chapter.

This is the only book on e-commerce that I have seen that actually creates and uses a theory-based organizing framework (they build on Porter's work on value chains). Even though the book was clearly designed to be used in the classroom (it has problem assignments, exercises, and an extensive list of references at the end of each chapter), I think this book would be an excellent resource for a business manager that wanted to learn what all of this e-commerce stuff was all about OR for a techie that wanted to learn something about the business end of e-commerce.

The book is a very easy read and is remarkably interesting (even the chapter on security theories is pretty hard to put down... and that is some dull stuff, usually). The book includes bolded company names throughout and each of those names is included on the book's Web site as a hyperlink to the company site. This is very useful because you can see the examples that the book mentions come to life (if you can read the book while you're in front of your computer)...

I would recommend this book to any reader that wants to learn more about electronic commerce than you would find in a light overview book. This book gets into details, but in a very readable way.


a good textbook   July 24, 2000
  2 out of 5 found this review helpful

a very good textbook which covers both technology & management topics.


a good textbook   July 24, 2000
  1 out of 6 found this review helpful

a very good textbook which covers both technology & management topics.


Balanced Look at E-Commerce Business and Technical Process   May 24, 2000
  25 out of 25 found this review helpful

Before reviewing the actual content, it is appropriate to mention that I teach a variety of computer courses for a technical college...and, therefore, read lots of books.

This text looks at business trading over the Internet from a process perspective. Marketing and Web page development are mentioned, but the focus of the content is on the technological "hoops" that are jumped through in order to complete e-commerce transactions.

The book includes chapters on Internet development history, packet-switching, server hardware and software considerations, security issues, payment systems, and marketing strategies (including the development of a business plan).

Instructionally, this book is current and a quality read (a little dry perhaps, but consider the material). The authors use many examples throughout and include many company and product names.

For someone in IT or management, this is a wonderfully balanced survey of e-commerce business structure and transaction process. The material presented will thoroughly get the reader up to speed on all of the aspects of ecommerce including most of the non-technical and semi-technical terminology. This really bridges the gap between IT professionals and traditional managers.

I feel that this is one of the better books I've ever used and recommend it highly for managers or instructors.