Focus THEME The above core services will provide the basis of an electronic business system that will be available throughout Australia. As the system is developed, further services will be provided to ensure that Transigo remains current with the latest drvelopments in tech- nology and business practice. A limited version of the scheme is alrcady in operation, and a public launch has been scheduled for early in the second quarter of 1997. CONCLUSION Transigo will form the basis of the wide- spread introduction of electronic business throughout industry and government Further information about the Transigo scheme is available a t http://www.transigo.net.au. THE ELECTRONIC MALL BODENSEE (EMB): AN ~NTRODUCTION TO THE EM6 AND ITS ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS INTRODUCTION On the way towards the inFormation society all of us are challenged: large companies as well as small and medium ones, public authorities, private house- holds and all other institutions and or- ganisations. One strategy to utilise the potentials of the information age and their enabling technologies is to establish re- gional electronic marketplaces. The estab- lishment of electronic marketplaces with a regional focus and a simultaneous vi- sion of a 'global village' is not contra- dictory but complementary (Zimmermann 1997). The Electronic Mall Bodensee (EMB) is a regional, but multi-national project that realises an electronic mar- ketplace for a specific region in the heart of Europe. It covers parts of Austria, Ger- many and Switzerland. The term 'electronic marketplace' is used in this context to designate an open, vir- tual electronic marketplace in the sense of the ancient Agora. On this classical marketplace people gathered to buy and sell, but also to socialise, argue politics. and exercise all the other prerogatives of citizenship (McFarland, 1994). The EMB project was launched in January 1995 to develop and implement a regional, electronic marketplace in the region around Lake Constance based on the vision oFthe "Bodenseeleitbild" (IBK, 1995). One major goal is to strengthen the economic power of the region by utilising the potentials of the new telematic infrastructures of the in- formation age. Therefore the EMB provides a platform for electronic commerce activi- ties - especially for small and medium sized enterprises (SME) - and enables private households to utilise the emerging new media for (at least parts of) their everyday life as consumers and citizens - e.g. as de- scribed in (Venkatesh, 1996). The initiators of the project were the Can- tonal Office for Industry, Commerce, and Employment (KIGA) as a government agency in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the ' Hans-Dieter Zimmemnnn (Hans-Dieter.Zinlrnermann@iwi. unisg.ch) is project leader of the Competence Centre Electronic Markets at the InstituteJor Ir?forrnation hlanagernent of the University of St.Gallerl. He was a founding member of the EMB. within Australia. It is being designed to include all the components necessary for an electronic business system. In providing this service, Telstra has moved from the use of ED1 as being the only service used for electronic commerce to electronic business where a range of services and technologies are used to au- tomate all interactions between two or- ganisations. Institute for Information Management at the University of St. Gallen. From the very beginning further partners from science, for example the University of Constance, Germany, and business were part of the project team. The realisation of the EMB has to be con- sidered under two viewpoints. On the one side the platform should be accessible from the very beginning. Therefore, cur- rent state-of-the art technologies and available commercial hard- and software packages are utilised. Until now Since its announcement, ernb.net EMB has received a reasonable reputation within the Ger- man speaking Internet community and is one of the leading electronic marketplaces in Europe. Examples are existing WWW database interfaces or security solutions. As a result of this procedure EMB can be accessed since June 1995 after a set-up period of six months. Since its announce- ment, etnb.net has received a reasonable reputation within the German speaking Internet community and is one of the leading electronic marketplaces in Europe. Since summer 1996 the EMB is operated by a new founded company, the EMB Inc. In addition to that the research partners in the project are developing and imple- menting new concepts and solutions. In- telligent electronic product catalogues (Schmid, 1996). electronic payment solu- tions (Himmelspach/Zimmermann, 1996), logistic services on the base of the CIL model (Computer Integrated Logistics) (Altl 1 KleinlCathomen, 1994). electronic con- Downloaded By: [Schmelich, Volker] At: 14:56 8 March 2010