Ray Van Eng (04/28/97)
"We realized several years ago that electronic communication would eventually pose a significant threat to our traditional business. On the other hand, we also saw that it presented a potentially huge business opportunity and so began investing in developing electronic commerce and e-mail for our business partners." Those are the words of Bengt Norin, Sweden Post's vice president for business development, commenting on the development of the nationwide TORGET project, an electronic communication network with a cyber shopping mall capable of handling secure financial transaction over the Internet. To wire up the whole country, Sweden Post is offering its citizens (8.8 million in all) an incentive to get on the Internet. Households wishing to join what is essentially a postal intranet would be given an e-mail account and a copy of the new Netscape Communicator software. For those without home PCs, the Sweden Post can either fax the incoming e-mail messages or print out hard copies and delivered as regular mail. Officials expect to have 1 million households sign up for the service. The TORGET network which was actually established in February 1996 has more than 100 online content providers and merchants forming a virtual community center and shopping mall where anyone can browse around, read news, chat and pay for products and services over the Internet. Sweden Post has chosen the Rockville, MD based V-ONE Corporation and its SmartGATE technology for secure online commerce. Customers joining the TORGET program would be given a smart card, a PC- compatible card reader and a diskette that holds the virtual smart card that contains personal information to be installed into the PC. When the customer wants to purchase an item online, his/her identity would first be verified, then the SmartGATE generate a random 56-bit session key to encrypt the transaction which is decrypted at the Sweden Post server where the financial information would be stored behind firewall. Sweden Post is comfortable with their technology choices and is signing up some 2,000 new customers every week. And today, there are more than 90,000 people already in the program. "The ability to shop online, knowing your credit card account is safe, appears to be what people were waiting for. All of the companies in the virtual shopping mall are reporting growing levels of business, beyond their expectations." Norin said. James F. Chen, president and CEO of V-ONE Corporation, said, "TORGET's success through SmartGATE demonstrates that with the right security solutions in place, today's Internet can be a safe and profitable medium for conducting even the most sensitive business transactions." The company boast to have General Electric Information
Services, MCI, Florida State University and a number of leading banks and
financial institutions as their customers. |
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