Abstract

Even today; some considerable time after the so called „dot com/Internet revolution‟, electronic commerce
(e-commerce) remains a relatively new, emerging and constantly changing area of business management
and information technology. There has been and continues to be much publicity and discussion about ecommerce. Library catalogues and shelves are filled with books and articles on the subject. However, there
remains a sense of confusion, suspicion and misunderstanding surrounding the area, which has been
exacerbated by the difference contexts in which electronic commerce is used, couples with the myriad
related themes that have arisen from the new area of electronic commerce and to provide and understanding
of its application and importance to management.
In order to understand electronic commerce it is important to identify the different terms that are used, and
to assess their origin and usage. According to the editor-in-chief of International Journal of Electronic
Commerce, Vladimir Zwass, „Electronic Commerce is sharing business information, maintaining business
relationships and conducting business transactions by means of telecommunications networks‟. He
maintains that in its purest form, electronics commerce has existed for over 40 years, originating form the
electronic transmission of messages during the Berlin airlift in 1948. From this, electronic data interchange
(EDI) was the next stage of e-commerce development. In the 1960s a cooperative effort between industry
groups produced a first attempt at common electronics data formats. The formats, however, were only for
purchasing, transportation and finance data, and were used primarily for intra-industry transactions. It was
not until the late 1970s that work began for national Electronics Data Interchange (EDI) standards, which
developed well into the early 1990s.