Electronic-data-interchange Books

Do you remember the dot.com revolution? Mass customization, location-based offers, intelligent e-business and all that? Much of it was, as Alan Greenspan famously said, irrational exuberance. But, some of it was true. The fact that Rifkin wrote this book in the heat of the dot.com boom (2000), and that he still got much of it right, is a testimony to his insight. As good as this book is, there is proof that he is not a perfect prognosticator. For example, he also wrote a book called The End of Work. That sure hasn't happened for me yet.

The best parts of this book are in the middle. Toward the end of the book, his analysis of postmodernism and its relationship to the network economy is great. Some of his key points: there is a significant shift underway from products to services and that even what we understand as products today are being offered as services, there is a significant shift from a production-based capitalistic economy to a network economy, and there is a shift toward commoditizing human relationships as we are currently witnessing with the social networking sites. This is a good and amazingly current book.

maybe it's just that i read it in 2007 (as the date stamp of this review shows) but i already knew all of what was covered in the book. it is old news. maybe it was relevant at the time, but half the things he talked about weren't accurate. *shrug* i found myself skipping through the book; trying to find something worth reading.

Rifkin states that the new economy is one in which cultural experiences are exchanged for money such as in tourism. He sees this development as the growth of capitalism into the cultural sphere in which cultural experiences become commercialized. He thinks that the work that we do now will be done by robots or computers in the future. The waning blue and white collar work will be replaced by opportunities in cultural work. The commodification of relationships means that people will buy the time, attention, and affection of other people.

Another feature of the new economy is that it deals in ideas and images, more than physical assets. Companies outsource the manufacturing of their product and concentrate on the design of the product only, such as with computers and cars. Companies also like to outsource manufacturing to non-union subcontractors so that they don't have deal with unions. Cheap labor overseas manufactures the product.

The intangible asset of the new economy is the knowledge or imagination of the associates in firms such as Microsoft. This company does not own many physical assets, but its stock still is valuable because of innovativeness of its knowledge workers in coming up with priceless commercial ideas. A new way of accounting needs to be devised to measure intangible assets such as knowledge, morale, progressive leadership, and creativity of different firms. Although Rifkin is excited about the new economy, he worries that non-commercial ideas will go by the wayside in a world in which only commercialized ideas are important.

Franchisees do not have as many rights as business owners do. In fact, the supplier often controls how the business is to be run. The contract can be broken if the franchisee violates any of the rules. Franchisees pay for the business formula and the name of the business, hoping for success without the risk of ownership. Rifkin predicts that small business will become extinct and will be replaced by franchises because the new economy is based on supplier/user relationships, not ownership. The franchisee is not autonomous and therefore cannot come up with any creative ideas on how the business should be run.

What we formally owned in the past will no longer be ours in the new economy. Rifkin informs us that we don't even own our genes because life science companies have patented them. If we want gene therapy, we will have to pay for the privilege of using their knowledge of the patent. Gene therapy may increase health care costs because of the expense of the genetic tests. We also will not own our seeds in the future because life science companies have patented the seeds that they have genetically modified. The seeds will be leased to the farmer for one growing season only. Heavy fines will be put on those who save the seeds to grow next season. Rifkin suggests that we need to revamp our anti-trusts laws for the knowledge economy so that monopolies will not control intellectual property.

The leasing of cars shows that businesses are turning to a service-based rather than a product-based economy. They seek the lifetime loyalty of the customer by establishing a relationship with him. I suppose that this will have an advantage for the customer since the supplier will seek the satisfaction of the customer over a lifetime, not wanting to betray trust. In the future, it will be assumed that products will come with long term service; if they don't, they could be rip-offs because the seller does not wish to maintain the product over the years. Invasions of privacy may occur if such suppliers are always seeking to find out what your buying habits are. Service relationships have also helped companies save money and the environment by having a service find out a way to provide that service more cheaply and less wastefully. The relationship between PPG painting and Ford Motor Company is given as an example.

The switch to product based economy to one in which service is emphasized has come about because there is more profit in providing added long-term services for a product, rather than selling the product as a one-time event. An over-production of goods means that it is difficult to sell products as one-offs and still make money. Products that are similar also have to have services that will differentiate them from the competition. The ability to customize a product to the customers needs is now able to be done. This mass customization replaces mass production of the previous era. In the new era, products are given away as the bait that will hook the customer into a relationship with the business over the long-term.

With the commodification of relationships in the new era, customers are ones that businesses seek to control, not so much the products. Companies will increasingly seek to sell to the same customer over the lifetime many different products. The customer is the market in this sense. With new technology, companies are able to find out what the buying habits of customers are and then cater to their preferences. Controlling the customer means that the company wants to become so "embedded" into the lives of customers that they can't live without the company. Changes to another company may become too much of a hassle, given the complexity of the commercial relationship. Corporate institutions wish to control the customer, just as they did the worker during the industrial era. They want to control economic life as opposed to having the masses control it. The purpose of capitalism is to keep increasing its power over our lives, even to the point of setting up communities of interests to help sell their services. Planned communities are also a way that corporations sell a lifestyle while abridging the ownership rights of the people who live there.

This book makes you turn 180 degrees fast! It takes all that you have learned in school about the ways of modernity and it pushes you into the global economy where experiences, ideas and relationships are valued above all else.

If you are wondering why the world has changed and how you can leverage those changes, you should take some time and read this book.

Attention is key to communication in any society....listening, seeing and experiencing-- so important to getting any message across, let alone establishing social networks and personal relationships. Rifkin is a master at spotting what is a major issue in our society-- I can't wait to read his European book...He understands trends before they hit the "Tipping Point" -- a salute to him. This book belongs on every marketer's shelf and on every student of branding and next-gen advertising and mass communications.....wonder why no one's paying attention -- Rifkin covers some of the possible answers here.

B2B Exchanges is one of the BEST books ever written on the topic of B2B, this book is not a hype B2B book, the book offers real value and insight into the role, the future and the features of B2B exchanges on the Internet. The book covers a vital emerging industry, for those of you who are interested in business, business methods, exchanges, B2B models or simply the future of the business Internet I strongly recommend this book. It is an easy read, but fully packed with useful information, we have actually adapted some of the points in the book as the core of our business plan.
The authors background in the financial markets offers a rare combination and an excellent ability to link and apply proven financial market models to the growing B2B space, it is worth noting as well that B2B is not the only topic covered, but the whole concept of exchanges and their application on the internet is explained and analyzed. ...

It is an ok book for B2B introduction. That is all it is worthwhile reading. Also, some of these information are somewhat outdated. Financial market is very different than electronics market for example. Sure some of the market fundamentals are similar (such as liquidity, and transaction level....), but the nature of the underlying assets is very different. Get an used one or borrow from someone for a quick reading.... I bought it brand new while visiting Hong Kong..

Although Arthur Sculley and William Woods give a good theoretical introduction to the universe of B2B exchanges, they do not live up to reader's expectations. Sculley and Woods seem to share the idea that a B2B exchange first needs to concentrate on building liquidity by matching orders, and then on increasing value. On page 123, they write: "Liquidity is king for exchanges, so it is essential to build trading volume as quickly as possible." Although increased pricing transparency that trading volume fosters, can be attractive to buyers and/or sellers, the ability to improve transparency and efficiency all along the value chain is the ultimate key to a massive buy-in from the industry. Therefore, the B2B exchange must work on reaching both goals in parallel. Otherwise, the B2B exchange will develop a value proposition and subsequently a pricing strategy that are unattractive to buyers and/or sellers. Unsurprisingly, sub-optimal relationships with buyers and/or sellers lead directly to low transaction volume, an unattractive services bundle and ultimately an under-performing B2B exchange. Furthermore, Sculley and Woods stress very little the inertia of many suppliers and their customers, without mentioning the intermediaries whose job is eventually on the line... Evolution is usually better than revolution to build an industry solution, by industry experts, that benefits all of the industry. In addition, Sculley and Woods also overemphasize the importance of the first mover advantage. On page 121, they write: "In true Internet pioneering fashion, the founders of a new exchange must plant their flag, declare victory and then run like hell." The debacle of many independent exchanges facing the competition of both private exchanges and industry-led consortia is a clear reminder that the first mover advantage is of relative, not absolute importance in many situations. Finally, Sculley and Woods are almost completely silent on the impact of legal regulations on the birth, development and death of B2B exchanges. For example, on page 9, they write: "One market space is likely to dominate for each product." Sculley and Woods seem to forget that Microsoft had drawn the attention of both the Department of Justice and FTC for years, precisely because of the overwhelming dominance of its operating system and its perceived "bullying" tactics in pursuing market domination.

I like many of you previous readers bought the book thinking that it would tell me about B2B exchanges, something that is red hot. Unfortunately this book is in the worst tradition of writing about hot topics. There is little here in terms of content, insight, or useful information. The authors repeatedly refer to the works of others rather than stating their own opinions or ideas. In addition their information is dated in many circumstances.

People looking for useful information should consult the many fine eCommerce business magazines such as Business 2.0, Fast Company, Industry Standard, Red Herring, etc. They have significantly better information, greater accuracy, and a presentation that provides you with knowledge you can use.

B2B Exchanges has a great title -- one that I am sure is driving sales by itself. Unfortunately it really fails to deliver. There is little of value here.

My suggestion, if you haven't done it yet read Kevin Kelly's New rules for the new econonmy (frequently cited by the authors) and then read the business magazines mentioned above. You will save yourself alot of hassle and the disappointment of spending good money and time on a book that really doesn't deliver.

I am being so harsh with this review because this book really wasted my time and I felt duped by the title. Hopefully my loss will be your benefit.

If you are somewhat famailiar with B2B, this book will not tell you anything you do not already know. If you know nothing about B2B, this book will not give you enough solid info to fix that problem. This book was recommended to me as a good basic text on B2B. I read it and several others and I was very dissapointed in this book. The writing is clear enough, but the content is completely superficial. It is a retrospective look at what has already happened in B2B and offers the reader no intellectual model or frame of reference to understand why B2B has evolved the way it has, or how it might evolve in the future. It is written from the perspective of some gentlemen who set up the Bermuda stock exchange, relaized that they had just just set up a B2B net marketplace, and wrote a book about their exchange and some other people's exchanges. Frankly, you can learn a lot more about B2B eCommerce by reading the web sites of Ariba, Commerce One, and an article called "How It Works" that appeared in the Feb 2000 edition of Business 2.0. (available on their web site in the archives). After visiting these sites, you'll have more up-to-date, real-world information than you will get from the book

If after reading these sites, you want to get a more intellectual understanding of B2B, the best book that I have read is Digital Capital by Tapscott, et. al. It provides an excellent frame of reference for understanding what is going on in B2B, and gives you enough of a balanced understanding that you can discuss the subject intelligently. It also avoids the use of exclamation points, hyperbole, breathless prose and hand-waving that I have found in far too many books on this subject.

Again, if you're going to read only one book on B2B eCommerce, DON'T MAKE THIS IT! This advice also applies if you're going to read only 8 or 10 books on eCommerce. ;)

Spend your money on a book that not only defines terms but also helps you to understand the application of the information. Just figuring out the relevance of some of the material is tough enough but add to it an overall and inexplicable ambiguity; it gives the appearance of being written by someone who is being paid to fill a set amount of pages with networkish facts and trivia. The practice exam is well designed in the format but the content of the questions are ridiculous (with some errors). After finishing the book I not only felt cheated out of money but my time which is even more precious. Save both and skip this book.

This book touches all bases of the fundamental basics that are required for the test. I had a peek at it before printing because I was able to do a bit of editing with one of the authors. If there is only one book that you need to be able to pass this test......BUY THIS ONE! I had chance to read a few others upon recommendation of one of the authors of this book and in all honesty, they were not quite as detail-oriented...to the point! This book has given a stay-at-home mom a new insight into life.

After taking this exam with only 2 days of study, all I can say is, This is the only book you need to pass! I did, however, find a few errors on the practice tests (hence the 4 stars instead of 5). If you only get one book, this is the one to get.

There are not too many study guides for you if you are working on the i-net+ exam. Most of you probably get the one from Sybex and the Exam Prep. Both of these are just average quality compared to A+, Net+, CCNA, or MCSE study guides published by those two companies. I used both of the study guides to prepare for my i-net+ exam. This book covers more than the Sybex one, other than the fact that this book is too dry for people to read. I did not read that from cover to cover, instead, I did the practice tests, chapter tests, and tests from the Sybex book, and found the explainations and definitions from this book if I answered wrong. Overall, this book has a lot of information but it's just hard for the reader to digest.

I bought this book a while back and let it sit for quite some time before I finally dug into it. Unfortunately, when I went to schedule my exam (I was 3 chapters from the end of the book) I found out that the test objectives were slightly altered(to reflect changes in technology). Fortunately, I found a 25 page study guide on the internet that gave an overview of the new objectives for the new exam(IKO-002).

The i-Net+ exam covers a broader scope of knowledge than any certification exam I have previously taken (A+, Network+ and Server+). As for this book, I think it's a fantastic resource. It covered the broad spectrum of material in as great a depth as I believe is possible without being dry and unreadable. The fact that I was able to pass the new exam with flying colors (I got an 811 out of a possible 900) using this book and only an amended study guide is quite a testimony to the thoroughness of this book.

I should warn that there are a few errors here and there on some of the practice tests. Also, the practice test questions range in difficulty from very challenging to insultingly easy - fortunately the latter type of question is rare and most give at least a moderate challenge. Oh well, if you take your time and read/study the book cover to cover you'll know the stuff well enough to edit what few mistakes there are in the pracice exams.

A+, Network+, Server+ and i-Net+ certified

This book gives a good overview of EDI. The main standards are explained quiete well and we can then get a good understanding of the EDI world.
At some points this book would need to get updated but it is fine as a first reading.

This author writes from experience, not theory. It is obvious from some of the tips and techniques that are offered that Nahid has been there done that. I have attended many of her speaking engagements and she really knows her stuff. The book is a great guide for management and also offers some level of technical guidance for the techies. I highly recommnend it. I am going to buy her new book!!

Jilovec says it is difficult to implement EDI. As it turns out, the difficulty is not with EDI per se. EDI is for exchanging business documents (orders, invoices, etc.) between companies. The challenge is to get the companies to agree on the format of the material they will exchange, and to organize the development process. Anyone who has experience programming this kind of application in any language will be familiar with most of what this book tells you. This book is overpriced for what it teaches. The good news is that I now understand what EDI is about.

If you have trouble understanding what EDI is all about, then you need to read this book.

Covers everything about Electronic Data Interchange. It is well organized, showing incoming EDI data and out going EDI data. Each EDI Software step is explained using the Pyramid approach: Communications, Translation, Interface, and Application.

The book looks small but the information inside is powerful. The Author is very knowledgeable in this subject.

I have always been interested in Computer Science and I picked up this book to better understand email -- which these days is Outlook and Exchange.

It is an awesome resource for me to learn about the applications and it actually got me hired on as an unpaid intern to help out my dad's company put out an Outlook/Exchange application

After purchasing this book and skimming through all of it while reading the sections I was interested in more thoroughly (VBScript and Custom Forms), and then going through everything a 2nd time, I was extremely disappointed.

I found the Author was not thorough at all when going over the Outlook Library objects, methods, and properties. I was constantly going to the MSDN site to fill in the gaps. The sample code was also quite limited I thought.

In my entire life, this book is the only book I have ever taken back to the store for a refund. I instead purchased the QUE book written by Patricia Cardoza, which I have found to be far more to my liking.

This is a good example of a book written by an author who just wanted to "write" and finish a book. I doubt if the author really knows the subject.

For example, in page 745,the section titled "What About Tasks?", the code example does not include task assignement, and he writes "You can attempt to code task recurrence and assignement, but this is much harder and can easily break Outlook if done incorrectly. For this reason, these functions are not shown in the following code because they are complex and prone to breaking Outlook". Funny. The author should attempt to explain how to do it correctly.

Outlook object properties, methods and events. The author enumerates all of them, no explanation. For example, page 170, about UserProperties and UserProperty, I saw a lot of these properties in his sample codes, but there are never any explanation what are these!

When he explained things, most are self-explanatory. For example in page 82 about "Setting the Actions for a Rule", he wrote"
Return to Sender - This action sends an item e-mailed to a folder back to a sender....
Delete - This action deletes an item...
Reply - With This action sends an automatic reply...
Forward - This action forwards all messages...

He shows how to create custom field (it's easy) but never explained how to access them programmatically.

It will take a whole book as big as this one to comment how disappointing this book is. It is much better to search msdn than read this book.

I have to disagree with the reviewer who says there is not a lot of depth in this book. Sure, the author does leave out some topics but he clearly states that they can either really mess up Outlook or that they are not supported by Microsoft which can get you into trouble down the road. Otherwise, this book is the bible for Exchang and Outlook development bar none. I origianlly got it to learn how to integrate our corporate CRM system with Outlook (our sales reps live in Outlook!). The book is well written, has lots of samples and gave me the kick start I needed to get my job done.

I have been disappointed by this book. I wanted it mostly to learn how to program Outlook. When I started reading it, I have realized that only a small portion of it was dedicated to Outlook. Perhaps that I am harsh against the book value because I am not part of the intended readers but I guess that even readers interested to programming Exchange would not find much value of this book. I am saying so because the book is huge close to a thousand pages but it sounds like a cut and paste of the Exchange programmer user manual. When I purchase a book like this one, I expect it to be a complement to the product documentation, to give a better insight of how and why a given software works like it does. This book does not deliver up to these expectations. The best Outlook programming book that I have found is: Microsoft Outlook Programming, Jumpstart for Administrators, Developers, and Power Users. Skip this one.

I had to purchase this book for a required course in my master's degree program for computer information systems. The course was a database administration course, focusing more on Oracle databases. In my opinion about this book, it is geared more toward Access databases. I didn't find much value in the book for the course I attended, primarily because it did have more access samples than any other database management system type.

If it is a required book, you might be able to find an older ebook version online free in pdf format. I found the 6th edition online in pdf format by searching for hours. The 6th edition had less in it, but the concept was the same. The value in this book is that it gives you an understanding of the concept of a database, but not specifically oracle databases, at least not in my opinion. If you're looking for a good oracle book to use for a reference tool and this is not a required book for your studies, there are many other better books for oracle available, particularly from oracle.com and other sources where you can find ebook versions.

For the money.. this book is certainly over priced. I believe the 8th edition is out on it too now. I also believe this book is not out of print because the newer edition is out. I am sure the newer edition doesn't have much more change than this one and again, if you can find an ebook version, you may save yourself quite a bit of money.

Sorry I don't have a high opinion on this book. I found no real value in it or using it in the course I was required to take. Additionally, I have a strong oracle background, so this book at little value to my learning of the course I had to purchase it for. If you do need it for a course, you might want to discuss with your professor what alternatives you can use instead, especially if the course subject area is not specific to access, like this book is. If the course you are taking is more specific to oracle, oracle.com is a good reference. If it's sql server, there are tons of ebooks available for sql server. I only recommend this book to someone who has no experience with databases and is looking for some information on generic database information. Otherwise, save your money and search for a good ebook version or a better version more geared to the type of dbms you'll be working with.

A good introduction, although a bit lightweight. I was just glad to find it on Amazon for half the price of even a used book on campus. I would not have been happy to have had to pay 150.00 for this.

It is what it is. It could have been a lot better but as it is required for my class at BU, I didn't have a choice.

The business data communications and networking book is very to read and understand. The bold and italicized writing makes it easier to comprehend the communication being presented. The information is up to date and I'd recommend this book to anyone who requires a clear understanding of business data communications and networking

It's a great introduction to networking, with details about LAN, Backbones, and WAN architectures. It is also easy to read and Understand.

When they said "Companion," they didn't mean Companion for Sendmail version 8.13; they ment Companion for "Sendmail, 3rd edition." This book only covers the updates between 8.12 and 8.13. If you don't know what 8.12 does in the first place, you need to get "Sendmail, 3rd edition" in addition to this one. Other than that, it's a great book.

This is a very short, but well written and organized book primarily intended for experts. It doesn't introduce sendmail, or provide complete overviews of the system. It covers topics specific to sendmail 8.13. I'm not quite sure why the didn't just come out with another version of the Sendmail book, but they didn't. What you get instead is this book which is a kind of addendum. Buy this book only in conjunction with the Sendmail book.

This slim book documents the latest major release of sendmail. It assumes that you are already well familiar with running an earlier sendmail. The author does not waste your time going over generic properties of sendmail that have been true for years.

The book can be easily summarised as fighting spam. The key changes in 8.13 revolve around this topic. A tribute to the scourge that spam has become.

Perhaps the biggest change has been the enhancements to Milter, which allows filter plugins that are written by third parties (you?), often in C. Then when sendmail gets a message, it applies these filters (there can be several). By this means, you can incorporate any particular antispam methods to the mail. Earlier sendmail versions had Milter. But 8.13 has vastly expanded the scope.

The book covers the basics of PostgreSQL, but it lacks usefull info for the more avanced tasks like tuning the database.
The 'stored procedure' (PL/pgSQL) chapter was for me the only interesting part of this book for me.
When I bought this I was hoping for the PostgreSQL 'Bible', but it was a big dissapointment.

My advice for improvement for the next release:
- much better index
- drop LXP chapter
- chapter about how to tune (not just SQL statements, but the postgreSQL server itself) and benchmark PostgreSQL.
- a chapter about 'schema' and when to use them.
- extend PL/pgSQL chapter with some 'real world' examples and how to do PL/pgSQL trouble shooting, PL/Perl(?)

- general advice how to manage PostgreSQL on 'day to day' basis
- maybe have a chapter about the SLONY replication add-on
- Postgresql 8.0 features

The Command Prompt guys did a fine job of writing this book. It contains basic topics, like retrieving rows from a table, and advanced topics, like session encryption, JDBC, and PL/pgSQL, and everything in between. A very complete SQL command listing is available at the back of the book, as well, for those times when you can't quite remember proper syntax.

Furthermore, it covers all the tools provided with PostgreSQL distributions (vacuumdb, etc.) and has a chapter on the included LXP software, which I haven't tried because I don't need it.

This text, in conjunction with Programming the Perl DBI, got me from a PostgreSQL/DBI newbie to accidentally memorizing common SQL syntax, writing my own Perl DBI wrapper, and programming some simpler PL/pgSQL functions in about four days.

I highly recommend it both as a tutorial and as a reference. Be warned, though -- the index is a bit sparse. Using it as a reference might require putting sticky tabs at the tops of your pages, as I've done.

This book used to be a good reference for PostgreSQL 7.4. However there is much more to PostgreSQL nowadays then it was six years ago.

This book has a problem that I guess most SQL books suffer from. It has a very long introduction to SQL itself. Which is not bad if you are a complete beginner. The book is somewhat boring to read, without that additional value because of which you buy a book. It lacks additional information on advanced PostgreSQL features, programming in PL/pgsql, replication, administration and some other interesting topics. On the other hand it's not that "practical" but rather a PostgreSQL reference.

All in all this book has too much reference which makes it hard to read. With that and the fact it is somewhat outdated, you might want to decide on skipping it.

I wanted to buy this book a few months ago, but after reading the reviews I relented. Finally, a few weeks ago I needed a book on PostgreSQL and it was the only one available, so I bought it. Since then I have referred to it almost everyday in my database programming duties. It is well made, well presented and goes into minute details that other books simply skip.

Normally I would have given this book 4 stars, but after being misled by the bad reviews below I decided it well deserved the extra star. My only concern with this book, is that it leaves out PHP, which is a shame. Because most people I know use PHP to interface the web with PostgreSQL.

if you need a book on the best Open Source database at the present, then this book should be amongst your top picks.

This is an excellent book to begin learning about the most advanced open source database available, it covers the theory and history of PostgreSQL and includes instructions on installing the database server.

The authors clearly explain the topics covered in the book, I've given the book to several co-workers who were interested in the book and they also view it favorably.

I recommend this book to the person interested in learning more about PostgreSQL or the person who has never used a database server before.

This book does not get into the advanced features of PostgreSQL but all in all this is a quality reference and handbook, perhaps better named as Learning PostgreSQL.

THIS BOOK IS WELL WRITTEN AND A GREAT BOOK ON THE SUBJECT OF EDI. A MUST HAVE FOR YOUR LIBRARY.

This book doesn't contain any information for the developer who has to get into the problem quickly. And there is no sign that deep exploration of it will give more useful information. This book is for a complete dummy but I can't see how reading it will help him.

I have seen thinly veiled product hype books before but this one takes the cake. They spend more time on "Trading Partner Software" than on the actual EDI specs. Then the authors push off the actual EDI specs that the software DOES accomodate to an appendix that is less readable than the public specs. Unfortunately I paid for the book, but you can bet it is already in the box and being returned!

I agree with the reviewer who thought that this was a good book. It will not carry you into the depths of architecture but it was never intended to do that. I get a strong sense that the person who did not like it hasn't worked much (at least) in this area. I have been in the information technology business for more years than I would care to admit and I have been both a professional EDI system developer and a trainer. This book addresses exactly the sort of basic questions that 99% of my customers pose and it should be the first stop for anybody who is remotely interested in that subject matter area. Since EDI is (at best) a slippery concept, the software that is provided offers something concrete that the customer/reader can get a grip on and (in my exprience) a text in this area without such a utility is useless.

The first 60 pages of this book are all that's really worthwhile. Although the author is given to some overly dramatic hyperbole and lists all the terrible things that will happen if you're not using EDI, the first 60 pages contain a few helpful hints.
The rest of the book is a[n]...advertisement for Trading Partner Desktop by Mercator Systems. If this is the software you're using, the book may be worth buying. Otherwise, find another book.

This book is more theoretical than a pratical book, only IAC componects are disscussed not any other internet technologies. the only samples discussed in this book are those which come as SAMPLES with IACs

I found this book a very poor effort. This is neither a hands-on approach or a practical approach. It is full of waffle and I get the impression that the authors were not really sure of the subject they wrote about. I look forward to the book that Gareth M. De Bruyn will write on R/3 & the Internet !

This is a very one sided and very SAP-oriented book, but it will give you an indication of the SAP-blessed way of doing things. Just be aware there are lots of falsehoods and generalizations, e.g. "mainframes cannot connect to the internet.", when one of the first successful things of the internet was LISTSERVs from the IBM VM operating system long before SAP could even pronounce let alone spell internet. Like most SAP stuff it pats SAP liberally on the back and paints themselves as the conveyers of "THE TRUTH". If you read it with a critical eye and believe about one half it is a good book and at the very least when people start slinging the buzzwords which is a favourite pastime in the SAP world you will be able to accurately gauge there knowledge.

I am using this book as one of my required textbooks this quarter at the University of Washington. As indicated by the title of the book, the focus of the book is on how current SAP R/3 users can make R/3's functions available over the Internet. The authors have not attempted to explain similar efforts by the other major ERP vendors.

As a professor, my choices of books and of ERP systems have been easy. SAP has provided its R/3 system to more than 70 American universities and to more than 350 universities worldwide. Only recently did J.D. Edwards start a grant program for universities. Anyone may search amazon.com's database and discover that there are very few books available on any aspect of the other ERP systems. The authors of this book should be applauded for writing an excellent book for use in universities.

As a professor, I expect authors to provide a theoretical framework in the first chapter. These authors passed my test by covering basic concepts of the extended supply chain in the first chapter. Systems developers need to understand why they are developing a new system and how to evaluate the success or failure of the new system. The authors have not provided a step-by-step guide for developers and for programmers. Readers will not find a CD-ROM at the back of the book. Instead, the authors have explained what you need to know about SAP R/3 and about the Internet to make them work together.

The authors discussed centralized, loosely coupled, and decentralized systems. A correct representation of the views of the authors about the use of mainframe computers may be found on page 18: "There is one exception: mainframe systems, such as those used in many large enterprises, for example insurance companies. Terminals attached to these systems cannot accept the client software required for the Internet." The authors understand the difference between a mainframe computer and a terminal.

For an opposing view, I require my students to read Andrew White's white paper: "The Value Equation: Value Chain Management, Collaboration and the Internet." This white paper explains why Logility, Inc. has taken a different approach to extended supply chain management than that taken by the ERP system vendors. You may find the white paper at the Collaboration Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment site: http://www.cpfr.org/

My students must read also the excellent materials you may find at the Web sites of RosettaNet and of the Uniform Code Council: http://www.rosettanet.org/ http://www.uc-council.org/

In sum, this is a good, introductory book for SAP R/3 users who want to provide R/3's functions over the Internet. There are already entire books on supply chain management and on the Internet. This book provides a good starting point for understanding how to combine SAP R/3 and the Internet. Someday, perhaps other vendors will find the courage to provide their systems and books for critical evaluation and use in universities. I am still waiting for other reviewers to cite better books.

Never having worked with SAP R/3 or ABAP/4 before I think the book was a good introduction to the basic components of connecting SAP to the Web via the ITS. The code examples of how to use HTML together with ABAP also gave me a better understanding of the system. The book gives a good start to build on before digging into the actual technical work.