Business-to-business e-commerce frameworks

Electronic commerce lets people purchase goods and exchange information on business transactions online. Although the Internet's role as a business channel is a fairly recent phenomenon, its impact, financial and otherwise, has been substantially greater than that of other business channels in existence for several decades. The authors believe that e-commerce gives companies improved efficiency and reliability of business processes through transaction automation. There are two major types of e-commerce: business to consumer (B2C), in which consumers purchase products and services from businesses, and business to business (B2B), in which businesses buy and sell among themselves. B2B transactions are a growing segment of the e-commerce market. This article analyzes and compares popular B2B frameworks that attempt to address such issues as interoperability and security between enterprises transacting business over the Internet.