Ubiquitous Commerce also known as U-Commerce, u commerce or uCommerce, refers to a variety of goods and/or services. Sometimes, it is used to refer to the wireless, continuous

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

and exchange of data and information between and among retailers,

customer In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for ...

s, and

system A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...

s (e.g.,

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

) regardless of location, devices used, or time of day. Sometimes, U-Commerce describes the generic term for all-encompassing business transactions through or by means of

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computers, ...

. Ubiquitous commerce or uCommerce should not be confused with U.Commerce, which is a set of products and services offered by TouchNet Information Systems, Inc. and is a registered U.S. trademark (Reg. 4,069,063).

Core Concepts

According to Richard T. Watson the next generation of commerce referred to as Ubiquitous Commerce (or U-Commerce) includes four major features: * ''Ubiquitous'' = represents the ability to be connect at any time and in any place as well as the integration of human-computer interaction into most devices and processes, e.g. household objects. * ''Uniqueness'' = stands for the unique identification of each customer or user regarding his identity, current context, needs and location resulting in an individual service. * ''Universal'' = is related to everyone’s devices which can be used multifunctional and as well as universal –you will always be connected no matter of your place. * ''Unison'' = constitutes the data integration across applications and devices to provide users consistent and fully access to required information independent of device and location. The term unison also relates to fully synchronised devices at any time.

Areas

U-Commerce is described as the evolution of

E-Commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

and

M-Commerce The term mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 by Kevin Duffey at the launch of the Global Mobile Commerce Forum, to mean "the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless techno ...

also combining the areas of V-commerce, Television-Commerce (

T-commerce T-Commerce is a term describing trade via a (smart) digital TV-set which – besides its main functionality – acts as a marketing channel enabling bidirectional communication enabling interactive advertising and addressable advertising. It is pa ...

) as well as Silent-Commerce (S-Commerce).

Technologies

The origin and development of Ubiquitous Commerce is based on various information and communication technologies. These technologies were driving forces for the evolution to business transactions at any time and in any place and so they will be in the future. Among them are the following examples: :*

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

as the fundamental technology and source :*mobile data services regarding

which are especially

Wireless LAN A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and bus ...

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

HSDPA High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunicat ...

and in the future 4G /

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...

:*TV technologies/add-ons like

Teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

and increasingly

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

:*technologies enhancing the communication of devices ( EDI,

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

, Web service) In addition, there are also technologies regarding the concept of

Ubiquitous Computing Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using a ...

which are and will be the main driving forces for the Ubiquitous Commerce. These are mainly the following: :*technologies of M2M communication, which include some of the technologies mentioned above :*methods for the automatic identification and data capture (

Auto-ID Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) refers to the methods of automatically identifying objects, collecting data about them, and entering them directly into computer systems, without human involvement. Technologies typically considere ...

) e.g.

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

und

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromag ...

:*in the future also smart and self-organizing devices/systems and the related technologies like

sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

s, AI

Opportunities and threats

In conjunction of the evolution of ubiquitous commerce in daily life and the approaching pervasiveness, a few opportunities as well as threats can be identified. Opportunities: :*individual advertising and also information supply e.g. based on location, time or mood of the customer :*high availability of services :*new potential revenue for supplier and accordingly new

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...

s :*advanced analysis alternatives for suppliers and customers (location, time, habit) :*increasing mobility of customers and suppliers Threats: :*information privacy and threatening of

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...

:*increasing requirements due to more diversity and quantity of devices and also energy consumption :*

Information overload Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, information anxiety, and information explosion) is the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue, ...

and likely complexity - also

Big Data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

:*higher vulnerability to spoofing and security holes; e.g. as a result of more targets :*rising exclusion of the elderly based on requirements of higher technical skills :*"desocialization" of customer and supplier

References

*
Richard T. Watson (2000). U-commerce: the ultimate. Retrieved March 14, 2012Watson, R.T. ; Junglas, Iris A. U-Commerce - The Ultimate Commerce. Retrieved March 14, 2012
{{Refend + Ubiquitous commerce Information technology management

Core Concepts

Areas

Technologies

Opportunities and threats

See also

References