Introduction
The basic framework of e-commerce enables doing business online. The framework consists of a comprehensive structure beginning with the based technology layer to the general service layer. E-commerce has, to a certain extent, changed markets structure. Traditionally, market ties were created through the exchange of goods, services, and money. E-commerce has brought in an essential element: information. Market ties are now based on information services, information goods and electronic money. Although the nature of exchanging products remains unchanged, the channel and the format of doing business have changed. To better understand the basic framework of e-commerce, the following paragraphs explain the features of the major layers in the environment of e-commerce.
Basic Framework
The First layer: Network Infrastructure
Also known as the “Information Superhighway”, network infrastructure is the foundation layer of hardware infrastructure. It is a mixture of many forms of information transport systems, which include telecom, cable TV, wireless and the Internet. These systems, in particular the Internet, provide various types of telecommunication channels for transmission of contents used in e-commerce.
The Second Layer: Multimedia Content and Network Publishing
While the Information Superhighway is the transportation basis that allows content such as text, sounds and images to be transmitted, the second layer provides an architecture that enables the content to be developed in a programming language know as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) for publishing on the World Wide Web (WWW). Another programming language in use is Java, which enables multimedia content to be transmitted to end users’ personal computers via various networks such as cable, wireless, fiber optics and satellites.
The Third layer: Messaging and Information Dissemination