|
The marketplace is the place of exchange between buyer and seller.
Once one rode a mule to get there; now one rides the Internet. An electronic marketplace
can span two rooms in the same building or two continents. How individuals, firms,
and organizations will approach and define the electronic marketplace depends
on people's ability to ask the right questions now and to take advantage of the
opportunities that will arise over the next few years. The
contributors to this volume are prime movers to major industries that are remaking
themselves in order to shape the global marketplace. They examine consumers' new
powers to assess and exchange goods and services over great distances. They discuss
the opportunities and risks posed by the new integration between manufacturer
and consumer, by the erosion of centralized authority, by real-time choice in
every financial contingency, and by the relegation of travel and transportation
to the machine processes that can best handle them. They also reflect on how to
set an intelligent value on the coming changes and on the tools and procedures
required to create this new marketplace of marketplaces. Derek
Leebaert, a co-founder of Linguateq, Inc., is a lecturer on Economics and Technology
at Georgetown University. He is the editor of The Future of Software (1994)
and Technology 2001: The Future of Computing and Communications (1991). |
