IBM targets Web trade

As part of an aggressive campaign to win share in the Internet electronic commerce market, IBM is bundling products and services for a range of industry sectors in its electronic business programme.

A range of products and services for specific vertical sectors will sit on top of a generic technology platform. It will be based on products such as Domino, Lotus Development's interactive Web application server, and a transactional Web site technology codenamed Web Object Manager.

Also on offer are Commerce-point, a family of end-to-end applications and services for electronic commerce, and Net Commerce Payment, based on the Set encryption standard for credit card transactions.

Charles Halle, the newly appointed UK manager for network computing solutions, said: 'We estimate there are now 64 million people on the Internet worldwide with this number doubling every year.

'In the UK, the market for electronic commerce software is worth about $2 million whereas by 2000, IBM expects UK firms to be spending over $70 million on electronic commerce software alone.'