HP Clarifies Future Course

Hewlett-Packard has issued a clarification of its future course, which understandably was widely interpreted as "getting out of the PC business" and discontinuing webOS and the TouchPad. Evidently, the only true statement in the foregoing is "discontinuing the TouchPad." As for the PC business, the HP Personal Systems Group (PSG) is alive and well, and "You'll still be able to buy HP PC products and services through our supply chain partners and online, and you'll continue to receive great customer service." As for WebOS, it is still alive - "Although HP is winding down the device operations of our webOS division by October 31, 2011, we will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software."

"In a nutshell," the statement concludes, "we expect the new PSG—whatever form that will be—will continue to innovate with high-quality products and services to meet business and consumer needs. HP will continue to focus on innovative cloud solutions and services to help tame the explosive growth of data that our customers are experiencing."

IBM Sterling Enables Mobile Modules as iTunes Apps

IBM's Sterling multichannel order management solutions has made a major commitment to the mobile platform and environment. To supplement Sterling's Order Management and Fulfillment Suite the company offers the IBM Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile to enable B2B integration teams to search, view, track and monitor data processed through the Sterling Commerce integration as-a-Service platform and exchanged with their trading partners via a mobile device. The module is available as a free app in the iTunes store.

Other Sterling Commerce Mobile Commerce apps include:

Sterling Field Sales Mobile
Provides customers using Sterling Order Management timely access to product content, pricing and inventory availability information from a mobile device. This allows sales representatives to quickly and easily respond to customer inquiries from anywhere.

Sterling Order Management Mobile Framework
Provides users of Sterling Order Management with mobile commerce capabilities to build and deploy a branded mobile store presence supporting product search, inventory look-up, product information look-up, order capture and checkout, and order history look-up. 

Sterling Store Associate Mobile
Provides  users of Sterling Order Management with more choice in how store associates access and use product and inventory availability information to handle customer inquiries and consummate the sale in a retail store setting.

Other Operations-Focused Mobile Applications from Sterling include:
Sterling Control Center Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Control Center with anywhere, anytime, mobile, handheld device access to file transfer system status, exception alerts, and system controls. File transfer support personnel benefit from using mobile access to ensure that decision-critical business information is securely delivered to the people and systems that need it.

Sterling Document Tracking Mobile
Provides users of Sterling Collaboration Network with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to monitor, search, review and manage document and trading partner activity

Sterling InFlight Data Management Mobile
Provides Users of Sterling B2B Integration as-a-Services products with anywhere, anytime, mobile handheld device access to search, view, track and monitor business critical documents processed by Sterling Commerce and exchanged with their trading partners.

Sterling Integrator Mobile
Enables users of Sterling Integrator to monitor key integration resources anywhere, anytime using their mobile handheld device to ensure that the most time- and content-critical business documents, transactions, and events are successfully exchanged on schedule.  

Sterling Order Management Administrator Mobile
Gives users of Sterling Order Management anywhere, anytime access to system response time and performance information from their mobile handheld device to ensure that orders are processed and fulfilled on time.

Sterling TMS Carrier Mobile
Provides carrier users of Sterling Transportation Management System (Sterling TMS) with the ability to manage shipment tender requests between shippers and transportation carriers via a mobile handheld device. This enables carriers to respond immediately to shipment tender requests and report shipment status in real-time.  

Crutchfield Does mComm 2.0

Crutchfield is one of the few multichannel merchants who have already revamped the first generation of their mCommerce site, according to an article in Internet Retailer.

Vers. 1.0 employed transcoding from Crutchfield's eComm site, and was not truly optimized for Smartphone use.  The new version was programmed in-house using HTML5, which the company is also using to redo its eCommerce platform. HTML5 allows Crutchfield to offer an mComm shipping calculator that uses the GPS technology built into smartphones to identify the customer's location and determine shipping costs as well as estimated time for delivery.

Click HERE for the full article.

hybris Acquires iCongo

hybris, a leading multichannel commerce software vendor, has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire iCongo, Inc., a Montreal, Canada-based company with complementary multichannel commerce software and services.  This transaction will reinforce hybris’s position, with over 350 B2C and B2B customers across the globe and a presence in 11 countries. The Company’s global operations will continue to be headquartered in Munich, Germany.  The senior management team from hybris will remain in place, and will be joined by senior management personnel from iCongo.

The combined companies hope for immediate and significant benefits for current and future customers, providing complete and modular multichannel commerce solutions through a single, agile, open platform powered by the highly successful hybris technology stack.

Existing customers of both companies will be able to benefit from this combined platform and the integration of order and warehouse management systems and other rich commerce functionality from the combined solution, which includes:

• enhanced offerings for B2B and B2C commerce
• mission-critical capabilities for integrating multichannel commerce across

        - eCommerce
        - mobile commerce
        - order management
        - warehouse management
        - product content management
        - marketing
        - point of sale

hybris will immediately offer a comprehensive managed services and cloud-based offering for customers and partners in addition to the on premise deployment option, and remains committed to a partner-centric delivery model, making the new, complete, multi-channel commerce solution accessible to its customers via more than 90 system integration partners.

“With this move hybris will further enhance its position as the one-stop shop for any company across the globe looking for a commerce solution that delivers a modern customer experience and efficient inventory management, which together result in increased customer retention, revenues and margins,” said Ariel Lüdi, CEO of hybris. “This is a terrific opportunity for our joint customer base and our partner channel to benefit from a broader footprint, both in terms of products and geographic presence. In addition, we will be able to jump start a managed services offering to provide customers with increased flexibility and choice.”

Steven Kramer, Co-Founder and President of iCongo, said; “The combined hybris and iCongo solution provides current and future customers with the fully-integrated, end-to-end, multi-channel commerce infrastructure required to capitalize on expectations for a seamless customer experience.  Channel-optimized touch points, central management of commerce logic, product and customer data, powerful cross-channel, distributed order management, and warehouse management are just a few highlights of the joint solutions capabilities.”

Cookies, Supercookies and Ubercookies

Here's an interesting summary on "Cookies, Supercookies and Ubercookies: Stealing the Identity of Web Visitors" from 33Bits of Entropy.

Consumer Confidence In eCommerce Security Drops

According to a study of consumer sentiment toward online shopping and security released today by McAfee (a security system firm wholly owned by Intel)  and conducted by Harris Interactive, only about a third of online consumers believe that most Websites are safe for shopping, an 11 percent decrease since McAfee conducted the survey in 2009. 

The majority of online consumers, 84 percent, continue to have some level of concern when providing personal information online.

“While consumers are faced with more options than ever for shopping online, it’s clear that one of their biggest concerns – security – remains,” said Steve Petracca, senior vice president of global consumer marketing at McAfee. “It is important for online retailers to recognize, understand and assuage these concerns in order to increase sales and earn trust from their customers.”

Persistent Concerns

The research showed that online consumers are more concerned about online shopping security than they were in 2009, despite advances in technology and in the popularity of online shopping. In fact, only six percent say they do not worry about security on the Internet.

The survey found that many online consumers would override their concerns about risks if they felt that they were receiving a substantial price discount. Despite their security concerns, four in 10 consumers admitted to having purchased from sites where they were unsure about the security of their personal information. In those cases, a discount in the 11-30 percent range is what drove them to make a purchase.

Increased Confidence in Trustmarks

At the same time that overall confidence is falling, consumer confidence in trustmarks is growing, especially for consumers shopping on small independent sites. According to security experts, SSL and a trustmark indicating a full privacy and data protection policy are the leading indicators that a site is trustworthy: 

• Seventy-five percent of consumers indicate they would choose a site with a trustmark over a site without one; 
• About one third of consumers would choose a small independent site with a trustmark over a larger well-known site when making a purchase;
• Nearly four in 10 consumers indicate they might spend more money online if they had a guarantee of security;
• About one-third of consumers indicate that they might even spend an additional 25 percent or more.

The Consumer Online Shopping survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of McAfee, between May 19 and May 31, among 605 adults, ages 18+, who shop online at least occasionally. McAfee was not identified as the sponsor of the research. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated; a full methodology is available.

McAfee SECURE Service

To address security concerns, survey sponsor McAfee developed the McAfee SECURE^™ trustmark for sale to Web site owners. Sites that display a McAfee SECURE trustmark must pass rigorous daily tests for vulnerabilities that pose a threat to sensitive customer information. McAfee also conducts daily network perimeter scanning, testing for more than 40,000 network and Web application vulnerabilities, security testing to ensure protection against malware, and business practice reviews for Web site owners and online retailers. With the McAfee SECURE service, e-commerce merchants can also demonstrate PCI DSS compliance, the standard for the payment card industry.

The McAfee SECURE trustmark is displayed on more than 80,000 etailer Websites and also in search results enhanced by McAfee^® SiteAdvisor^® software, allowing merchants to be viewed prominently in those results. A/B testing performed by McAfee in 2009 found that on average sites displaying the McAfee SECURE trustmark saw a 12 percent increase in online sales conversions as compared to those sites that did not.

Pricing is based on the number of IP addresses and page views. For more information, see: www.mcafeesecure.com.

Fight Fraud on a Global Scale

Carl Clump, chief executive of Retail Decisions, a payment fraud prevention provider, has a very insightful and useful article in Direct Commerce magazine on Fighting Fraud On a Global Scale. It's brief, concise, and actionable!