Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P62 potx

544 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business personal agent was developed as a J2ME MIDlet 5 application that offered a graphical interface for its user to initiate or recall the mobile agent, and to dialogue with the mediator server. The mediator server played an important role in our architec- ture, running a Tomcat Apache Servlet Engine on a JADE platform. JADE is an open-source with good scalability, one of the best modern agent environments compliant with FIPA. As shown in Figure 6, there are two containers on the JADE system, Main-container and Container-1. Main- container holds the basic management agents GH¿QHGE\ FIPA (AMS, DF, and RMA, which manages the GUI of the JADE platform). The proxy agent, buying agents, and selling agents run in Container-1. We can deploy the mediator-based architecture in one or several PCs. The Web services architecture communica- tions are based on JSR172, J2ME Web services, which include two independent parts: the JAX- RPC and JAXP. XML is chosen as the standard way for clients to interact with backend servers so as to use the remote services. J2ME JAX-RPC APIs subset solves how to access the SOAP/XML Web services and JAXP APIs subset solves how to process the XML messages. Messages exchanged by agents in the multi-agent system have a format VSHFL¿HGE\WKH$&/ODQJXDJHGH¿QHGE\),3$ for agent interoperability. Figure 6. Screenshots of a personal agent and the JADE platform Figure 7. Experiment environment Mediator server 1 (Tomcat + JADE) Mediator server 2 (Tomcat + JADE) Agent-based server 3 (JADE) Web-based buyer or seller Mobile buyer Mobile seller 545 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business As shown in Figure 7, we deployed three servers in the Local Area Network, installed J2ME MIDlet in two mobile phone simulators, provided one GUI for the Web-based seller, and simulated a simple used-item electronic trading scenario similar to the one we described in A Scenario of Our Architecture section previously. The mobile phone emulator is a tool provided by the Sun J2ME wireless toolkit 2.2. Both mediator servers deployed the Tomcat server and the main container of JADE platform was initialized. The third computer played the role of an agent-based marketplace on the Internet. For the buyer’s emulator, the user activated the mobility of the buying agent, but it was not the case for the seller’s emulator. We observed the following results: • Mobile users can connect to mediator serv - ers via HTTP and initiate mobile buying or selling agents in the mediator server. • Mobile users do not need to instruct their PRELOHDJHQWVRIZKDWWRGRDIWHUFRQ¿JXU- ing their preferences. • Mobile users can add new items anytime and relevant mobile agents will be created to handle the trading of these new items respectively. • Mobile users can kill their mobile agents to cancel their tasks by sending instruction to their personal agents. • Mobile agents are active in their servers Z LWK L Q W KHVSHFL¿HGVH U YHUD FW LYLW \W L P H D Q G then migrate to other servers. • Buying agents can reach agreements with selling agents when the required item and price are matched. Mobile users then receive text messages from their agents, displayed on the screen of the simulators. • Mobile agents end their life cycles when ¿QLVKLQJWKHLUWDVNV $VFRQ¿UPHGE\WKHH[SHULPHQWVPRELOH users connect to their servers only when they need to add new items or to cancel their tasks. 7KLVREYLRXVO\UHVXOWVLQVXFKEHQH¿WVDVUHGXFHG bandwidth utilization, increased battery life for mobile devices, and no complicated computa- tion conducted in mobile devices. Also, mobile agents can move to various servers to negotiate autonomously, and mediator servers can accept mobile agents from outside their systems. This feature enables users to participate in multiple markets on the Internet. In particular, we observed the migration pro- cess of a mobile agent. Mobile agents should be DFWLYHLQWKHLUVHUYHUVZLWKLQDVSHFL¿HGWLPHDQG migrate among the servers. Thus, we developed a scenario where we supposed that a buying agent started from Server1 and continued searching for the required product or service in Server2 and Server3. We set up two parameters for this mobile agent: Maximum server active time was set to 100 seconds and total lifetime was set to 850 seconds. As expected, the buying agent contacted the other agents in Server1 and then migrated to Server2 after approximately 100 seconds. Simi- larly, the buying agent communicated with other agents in Server2 and then traveled to Server3. The same things happened in Server3. Because there were no more sites to be visited, the buy- ing agent migrated back to Server1, ending its ¿UVWURXQGRIPLJUDWLRQ7KHVHFRQGURXQGZDV started since the total lifetime was not reached. We assumed that no sellers offered the required product or service to this buying agent. With the time elapsed, the buying agent was in its third round and roamed into Server2. At this stage, the buying agent used up its lifetime of 850 seconds and predicted an ending of its life cycle. Therefore it migrated back to the host Server1, even though WKHWKLUGURXQGWULSZDVQRW¿QLVKHG,QDQRWKHU scenario, we used the same parameters for the buying agent, except that the total lifetime was enlarged to 1,000 seconds. The difference was that we dispatched a selling agent in Server2 at the moment the buying agent was ready to launch its third round trip. This selling agent offered exactly the service that the buying agent needed. 546 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business As we expected, the two agents met and reached an agreement after negotiating with each other. 7KLVH[SHULPHQWFRQ¿UPHGWKDWDIWHUFRPSOHW- ing its task, the buying agent migrated back to Server1, regardless of its remaining lifetime that had not yet been exhausted. DISCUSSION AND FUTURE WORK In this article, we propose a feasible mobile agent architecture that assists users in C2C e-business. It enriches the resources for users to perform comparison shopping activities at the point of purchase. Users’ mobile devices connect to the QHWZRUNRQO\ZKHQQHHGHGWKXVPDNLQJHI¿FLHQW use of limited bandwidth and reducing the network WUDI¿F,QDGGLWLRQLWKHOSVFHOOSKRQHXVHUVVDYH money from their expensive bills. At any time, users may add items via their personal agents and specify their preferences such as time limit and preferred price for trading. Through the negotia- tion process between mobile buying and selling agents, users also gain valuable information for making trading decisions. Our proposed architecture is extensible: On the one hand, XML-based communication is used to enhance extensibility; on the other hand, the architecture could be easily extended to B2C, or even B2B business models. That is, not only individuals but also business companies can be attached to the architecture. With mobile phones and PDAs already being used as extended enter- prise tools, business companies, such as retailers and suppliers, can publish their products and/or services on their servers via mobile devices. As long as these businesses take part in our architec- W X U H S D U W L H V  W K H \ F R X O G E H Q H ¿W I U R P W K H D X W R P D W L F  discovery of other business partners. Also, it is possible for businesses, especially for retailers, to sell their products to potential buyers in the manner described in the proposed architecture as an extra way to their traditional ones. In this sense, our architecture is an integration model of C2C, B2C, and B2B e-business. Nonetheless, using mobile devices for complex tasks can be TXLWH IUXVWUDWLQJ HJ GLI¿FXOW WR HQWHU GDWD so probably people will not use it. An idea is to incorporate targeted messaging or advertising into our model, where businesses could send a message to users who are physically located in their vicinity. Agents could negotiate a transaction, and the buyer would already be located nearby to complete the purchase and pick up the item. Currently, we present a conceptual framework W K DW Q H H G V W R E H U H¿ QH G  8VLQJW K L V ZRUND V D V W D U W- ing point, we have outlined a number of future research directions: 1. Negotiation protocols do not have to be hard-coded into the agents. Instead, mobile agents can adapt to any intelligent negotia- tion strategies when they arrive at a new remote location. Thus, our architecture paves the way for future research in which more general architectures can be explored to allow mobile agents to participate in a variety of negotiation protocols, such as factor negotiation (price, quality, delivery time, etc.), electronic contracting, and so on. Currently, the negotiation strategy module consists of only a purchase determined by SULFHDJHQWVVHHNDSUHIHUDEOHSULFHE\D¿[HG DPRXQW ),3$ GH¿QHV DXFWLRQ SURWRFROV (e.g., Dutch and English auctions) as well DVVLPSOHUVWUDWHJLHVVXFKDV¿[HGSULFLQJ ¿[HGSULFLQJZLWKDGLVFRXQWDQGVRRQ:H will add them into the negotiation protocols in our future research. 2. Items are described only by their names. Obviously, other attributes, such as color, age, terms of warranty and delivery should also be considered. We believe that ontolo- gies can help to solve this problem. It should be noted that the small screen of mobile devices will bring inconvenience to users when they specify many attributes of an item. A possible solution is to make use of 547 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business the persistent memory of mobile devices to store the users’ preferences. 3. Mobile agent technology currently has some limitations, such as identity management, fault tolerance, protection of agents, and resource security. These limitations have brought up some concerns about the practical utilization of mobile agents. For example, in the area of security, e-business applications are often involved with money and thus users may hesitate to use mobile agents, unless mobile agents are secure enough to be trusted. In the situation presented in this article, the mobile agents representing different buyers or sellers migrate over the Internet and then execute themselves on remote computers. These mobile agents are thus exposed to open environments and may become vulnerable. Since the mobile agents execute on unknown computers and interact with unknown agents, a reliable security infrastructure is vitally needed for the design of the system. The mobile agents must be able to deal with sit uations where they have been shipped off to the wrong address or to a hostile environment (Neuenhofen & Thompson, 1998). Listed below are some pos- sible security concerns: • Malicious mobile agents can try to access services and resources without adequate permissions. In addition, a malicious agent may assume the identity of another agent in order to gain access to platform resources and services, or to cause mischief or even serious damage to the platform. • Mobile agents may suffer eavesdropping at- tack from other mobile agents. A malicious agent can sniff the conversations between other agents or monitor the behavior of a mobile agent in order to extract sensitive information from it. • Mobile agents may suffer alteration attack from malicious hosts. To execute the agent DQGXSGDWHLWVVWDWHWKHKRVWPXVWGH¿QLWHO\ be capable of reading and writing the agent. A malicious host may steal private informa- tion from the agent or modify the agent to compute the wrong result or to misbehave when it jumps to another site. Current research efforts in the area of mobile agent security adopt two different perspectives (Kotz, 2002): First, from the platform perspec- tive, we need to protect the host from malicious mobile agents (such as viruses and Trojan horses) that are visiting it and consuming its resources. Second, from the mobile agent perspective, we need to protect the agent from malicious hosts. There are many mechanisms to protect a host against malicious agents. Digital signatures and trust management approaches may help identify the agent and evaluate how much it should be trusted. The malicious host problem, in which a malicious host attacks a visiting mobile agent, LV WKH PRVWGLI¿FXOW SUREOHP :HIRXQG LQ WKH literature some works on powerful techniques such as Sandboxing and Proof-Carrying Code (PCC). Sandboxing (Wahbe, Lucco, Anderson, & Graham, 1993) is a software technique used to protect a mobile agent platform from mali- cious mobile agents. PCC (Lee & Necula, 1997) introduces the technique in which the code pro- ducer is required to provide a formal proof that the code complies with the security policy of the code consumer. Therefore, we envisage that the security of mobile agents is an important issue that will encourage techniques and mechanisms for e-business in the future. CONCLUSION We propose in this article an e-business architec- ture that allows traders to do business at remote locations by means of mobile intelligent agents. Our architecture, which adheres to standardiza- WLRQHIIRUWVLQWKHPXOWLDJHQW¿HOGVXFKDV),3$ 548 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business paves a possible way towards a near future when mobile buying (and selling) agents can smoothly travel among different agent-based marketplaces to carry out tasks on their users’ behalves. Our purpose of presenting this idea is to improve our understanding of the value of mobility and to encourage the conceptual construction of a global community. We do not claim that buyers and sellers around the world would have to buy into this to make it work, and that worldwide C2B e-commerce would be revolutionized thereby. In practice, however, we hope that our work would be useful on a smaller scale and lead to new investigations that may result in new solutions to the problems we addressed. Our proposed architecture, aimed at providing new capabilities for advanced e-business solutions, employs an approach that integrates intelligent and mobile agents. Intelligent agents can provide automation support for decision-making tasks, while mobile agents can extend that support by allowing users to participate in several marketplaces in a networked e-business. We believe that intelligent and mobile agent technology is also a promising solution to the problems of low speed, high latency, and limited computing ability that the current wireless network is facing. REFERENCES Bellifemine, F., Caire, G., Trucco, T., & Rimassa, G. (2006). JADE programmer’s guide. Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://jade.cselt.it/docs Chavez, A., & Maes, P. (1996). Kasbah: An agent marketplace for buying and selling goods. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agent Technology, London, United Kingdom. Chiang, H., & Liao, Y. (2004). An agent-based ar- chitecture for impulse-induced mobile shopping, Computer and Information Technology. &KPLHO.HWDO7HVWLQJWKHHI¿FLHQF\ of JADE agent platform. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Computing (pp. 49-57). IEEE Com- puter Society Press. Curbera, F., Duftler, M., Khalaf, R., Nagy, W., Mukhi, N., & Weerawarana, S. (2002, March- April). Unraveling the Web services web: An introduction to SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. IEEE Internet Computing, 6(2), 86-93 FIPA. (2006). Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http:// ZZZ¿SDRUJ Fonseca, S., Griss, M., & Letsinger, R. (2001). An agent-mediator e-business environment for the mobile shopper (HP Tech. Rep. No. HPL- 20010157). Gray, R.S. (1997). Agent Tcl. Dr. Dobb’s Journal, pp. 18-26. Impulse. (2006). Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://agents.media.mit.edu/projects/impulse/ Jøsang, A., & Ismail, R. (2002, June). The Beta Reputation System. In Proceedings of the 15th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference, Bled, Slovenia. Kotz, D. (2002). Future directions for mobile agent research. IEEE Computer Science. Kotz, D., & Gray, R. (1999). Mobile code: The future of the Internet. In Proceedings of Autono- mous Agents’99: Workshop on Mobile Agents in the Context of Competition and Cooperation. Kowalczyk, R., et al. (2002). Integrating mobile and intelligent agents in advanced e-business: A survey. In Proceedings of Agent Technologies, Infrastructures, Tools, and Applications for E- Services, NODe’2002 Agent-Related Workshops, Erfurt, Germany. Lange, B.D., & Oshima, M. (1998). Programming and deploying Java mobile agents with aglets. Addison-Wesley. 549 A Mobile Intelligent Agent-Based Architecture for E-Business Lange, D.B., & Oshima, M. (1999). Seven good reasons for mobile agents. Communications of the ACM. Lee, P., & Necula, G. (1997). Research on proof-carrying code on mobile-code security. In Proceedings of the Workshop on Foundations of Mobile Code Security. Moreno, et al. (2005). Using JADE-LEAP to implement agents in mobile devices. Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://www.zdnet.de/itman- ager/whitepapers Neuenhofen, K.A., & Thompson, M. (1998). Con- templations on a secure marketplace for mobile Java agents. In K.P. Sycara & M. Wooldridge (Eds.), Proceedings of Autonomous Agents 98, Minneapolis, Minnesota. New York: ACM Press. Sandholm, T., & Huai, Q. (2000). Nomad: Mobile agent system for an Internet-based auction house. IEEE Internet Computing, pp. 80-86. Sun. (2006). Java. Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://java.sun.com/javame/ Suri, N., et al. (2000). NOMADS: Toward a strong and safe mobile system. In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Autonomous Agents (pp. 163-164). New York: ACM Press. Todd, S., Parr, F., & Conner, M. (2005). An over- view of the reliable HTTP protocol. Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://www-128.ibm.com/developer- works/webservices/library/ws-phtt/ UDDI. (2006). Retrieved July 7, 2007, from http://www.uddi.org/ Wahbe, R., Lucco, S., Anderson, T.E., & Graham, 6/(I¿FLHQWVRIWZDUHEDVHGIDXOWLVROD- tion. In Proceedings of the 14th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (pp. 203-216). Wang, A.I., Sørensen, C.F., & Indal, E. (2003). A mobile agent architecture for heterogeneous de- vices. Wireless and Optical Communications. White, J.E. (1999). Telescript technology: Mobile agents. In Mobility: Processes, computers, and agents (pp. 460-493). New York: ACM Press/Ad- dison-Wesley. ENDNOTES 1 In the experiment, we developed a GUI in the mediator server for users to launch a buying or selling agent. 2 The white-page agent maintains different service provider sites. Section 3.4 will de- scribe this agent in more detail. 3 Detailed description of the proxy agent is provided in Section 3.4. 4 In an object-oriented context, a behavior is an inner class of the proxy agent. 5 MIDlet is a Java program generally running on a cell phone, for embedded devices, more VSHFL¿FDOO\WKH-DYD0(YLUWXDOPDFKLQH This work was previously published in the International Journal of Information Technology and Web Engineering, edited by G. Alkhatib, Vol. 2, Issue 4, pp. 63-80, copyright 2007 by IGI Publishing (an imprint of IGI Global). 550 Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 2.14 Using E- and M-Business Components in Business: Approaches, Cases, and Rules of Thumb Mikael Collan Åbo Akademi University, Finland Anna Sell Åbo Akademi University, Finland Ville Harkke Åbo Akademi University, Finland Bill Anckar Omena Hotellit Oy / IAMSR, Finland ABSTRACT This chapter discusses using e- and m-business components in supporting and enhancing existing businesses and in creating new business innova- tions. A framework illustrating two different approaches companies have to adoption of e- and m-business components is proposed. Three cases of how Finnish companies have, in an innova- tive way, used e- and m-business components to support, enhance, and launch businesses are presented. Based on the illustrative framework and the cases, some rules of thumb for using e- and m-business components in business are proposed. The aim of this chapter is to offer managers helpful insights for planning e- and m-business component investments. INTRODUCTION It is quite clear that electronic (e) and mobile (m) commerce are here to stay and that they give established companies a set of new alternatives 551 Using E- and M-Business Components in Business to conduct their businesses and opportunities for starting new companies. In general, we can characterise e- and m-commerce as the differ- ent ways of supporting and conducting business over the Internet (e) and/or with mobile devices (m). Examples of e-commerce can be a store operating exclusively on the World Wide Web (e.g., Amazon.com) or a company offering only very limited services through the Internet (e.g., e-mail-based reservations). m-commerce can be understood in equally diverse ways, indeed there P D \ E H D Q X P E H U RIG L I I H U H Q W G H ¿ Q L W L R Q V IR U H  D Q G  m-commerce which are all correct. Due to the possibility of very diverse views in understand- ing what e-commerce and m-commerce are, in this chapter, we refer to the application of e- and m-commerce techniques to business as using e- and m-business components. There are, and have been, many misperceptions as to what e- and m-commerce are, about what they are not, and especially about how and how much they generate value. These misperceptions have led to a number of spectacular failures, such as those of the online grocer Webvan and the In- ternet clothing retailer Boo.com, which for their part have made many managers feel suspicion toward applying e- and m-business components in their companies. The aim of this chapter is to support managers in understanding what kind of e- and m-business components would possibly suit their companies. A key issue in assessing the suitability of e- and m-business components for a company is under- standing the orientation that the company has in its approach to e- and m-business components (i.e., is the company a technology- or a busi- ness-orientated e- and m-business component adopter?). Observing the different orientations of approaches of different companies to adopting e- and m-business components helps managers to better understand the orientation of their own FRPSDQ\DQGPD\VLJQL¿FDQWO\UHGXFHWKHULVNRI misinterpreting the e- and m-business component investment needs of the organisation. It cannot be argued that e- or m-commerce would be almighty forces that guarantee suc- cess. Indeed, if such statements are made, they are undoubtedly wrong. However, there are a number of positive experiences from successfully using e- and m-business components to enhance and to revitalise existing businesses, such as the British grocer Tesco, whose online endeavour 7HVFRFRPLVSUR¿WDEOH$QRWKHUH[DPSOHLVWKH e-commerce early adopter Lands’ End. There also have also been successful starts of new businesses, VXFKDVWKDWRIWKHSUR¿WDEOHRQOLQHFRPPXQLW\ Classmates.com. The successful applications of e- and m-busi- ness components are often the result of insight- IXO LQQRYDWLRQV PRUH VSHFL¿FDOO\ LQVLJKWIXO innovations within the core business (idea) of the company. A business innovation can be to replace an old way of doing business with a new way, or by introducing a business idea that has never been tested before. In many successful e- and m-commerce cases, the success has often come from the insightful application of existing technology that a company has used to support, enhance, or extend its core business (Coltman, Devinney, Latukefu, & Midgley, 2001). There is a wide amount of literature about how companies should use their competencies to gain competitive advantages and how they should go about updating their operations and ways of doing business in the changing world. Core competence thinking, usually attributed to Prahalad and Hamel (1990) is one way of characterising how companies can build competive advantage through consoli- dating skills and technologies within companies to core competence areas. Such consolidation is reached through enhanced communication and constructive managerial involvement in the areas, ZKLFKKDYHEHHQLGHQWL¿HGDVWKHVWUHQJWKVRIWKH company. The basis of the competitive advantage of a company, according to the core competence thinking, can be the systematic application of the things the company does best in everything the company does. 552 Using E- and M-Business Components in Business Creating competitive advantage through concentrating and developing core competen- cies is one issue, while retaining the competi- tive advantage is another. Companies need to change in order to keep up with the changes in their environment, otherwise they are likely to lose their competitive advantage (i.e., ways of applying core competencies must change as the competitive environment changes). The efforts that companies make to change have been given different names and concentrated on different issues within the organisation of a company (e.g., TQM, reengineering, right sizing, restructuring, cultural change, and turnaround). Despite the different approaches, the basic goal has been the same — to make fundamental changes into how business is conducted to cope with the changing environment (Kotter, 1995). We can view e- and m-business components as tools that can be used to transform the busi- ness processes to retain competitive advantage, or as the core competence area of a company. In fact, we can view e- and m-business components as any other core competence or tool of business transformation. For the companies that base their business idea on e- and m-business components, they are parts of the core competence areas, while for other,s they are tools to retain competitive advantage. C o mp a n ie s w it h a n ex i st i n g c or e bu si n e s s t h at decide to analyse enhancing their operations with e- and m-business components should keep their eye on the ball, that is, on their core business, and not get carried away (Ross, Vitale, & Weill, 2001). We want to point out that creating core compe- tencies out of e- and m-business components is DV GLI¿FXOWDVFUHDWLQJ DQ\FRUHFRPSHWHQFLHV hence, veryGLI¿FXOW If companies utilise e- and m-business com- ponents to transform their core business(es), it is very important to critically analyse if the revenue logic of the business changes. If the revenue logic remains unchanged, then it is to be expected that also the valuation principles of the business most likely remain unchanged. In other words, there is no reason to draw the conclusion that e- and m- business components will miraculously increase WKHSUR¿WDELOLW\RIWKHFRPSDQ\,QGHHGRYHUVWDWH- ments of the value of e- and m-component-based companies and investments have been common enough (Glasner, 1999; Kanter, 2001). Value creation in e- and m-business is one of the most important issues in deciding about e- and m-business component investments. Amit and Zott (2001) discuss the sources of e-commerce value creation based on six different theoretical frameworks and summarise that each of them suggests possible sources of value creation. It has been argued in many occasions that e- and m-business offer the companies that utilise them enhanced potential for greater earnings through the new possibilities they enable due to conve- nience, speed, ease-of-use, cost- and labour sav- ings, and enhanced communications (Lederer, Mirchandani, Sims, 2001). By using e- and m- business components, companies can increase the possibility of reaching higher earnings in the future. However, using e- and m-business compo- nents does not necessarily mean that such higher earnings are reached. This is why it is important to understand the effect of the enhanced potential to the value of the business, the mistakes that have been made, and when potential has been misrepresented as value (Fernandez, 2003). There are some models available for measure- ment of potential, for example, the real options approach is a collection of methods to understand, measure, and value potential. The real option approach offers valuation rules that can be used WRDVVLVWLQWKHDQDO\VLVRIWKHSUR¿WDELOLW\RIH and m-business investments in companies (e.g., Mehler-Bicher & Ahnefeld, 2002). Like with any other methods, the correct use of the methods used in the real options approach is important. All methods can be made to show desired results; at the end of the day, it is in the interest of everyone to be realistic. 553 Using E- and M-Business Components in Business In the next section, we will propose a frame- work to illustrate the different orientations that companies have in approaching e- and m-busi- ness component investments. This is followed by a presentation of three cases from Finnish companies that illustrate adoption of e- and m- components in business. Based on the introduc- tion, the proposed framework, and the cases, three rules of thumb for successful application of e- and m-business components are proposed and shortly discussed. The chapter closes with a summary and conclusion. THE TECHNOLOGY- AND BUSINESS-ORIENTED APPROACHES To E- and M-Business In the introduction, we argue that there are un- GRXEWHGO\DQXPEHURIGLIIHUHQWGH¿QLWLRQVIRU e- and m-commerce and that business components or concepts that are based on e- and m-technology ²³HDQGPEXVLQHVVFRPSRQHQWV´²FDQEH used in different ways. We point out that e- and m-business components can be used to support existing core businesses by replacing old ways with new e- and m- methods and for creating totally new core business areas. In both of these ways, companies can retain their competitive advantage. We feel that it is important to separate com- panies according to their orientation to e- and m-business component investments and starting e- and m-business. Do companies develop technol- ogy and utilise existing (or create new) business ideas to commercialise the technology, or do they develop business ideas and utilise existing (or create new) technology to commercialise the business ideas? To discuss this interesting issue, we propose a framework that illustrates the two different orien- tations of approaches. This framework is useful in understanding the different approaches and in raising questions about the difference in risks and possibilities that they entail to the success DQGSUR¿WDELOLW\RIHDQGPEXVLQHVVFRPSRQHQW investments. Companies with core competence areas in technical research and development of e- and m- business components often succeed in their e- and m-business by researching and developing new technology to do new things or to do old things in a more technically advanced (better) way. These companies mostly use the technology-oriented approach to e- and m-business innovation (see Figure 1). The technology-oriented approach is based on the notion that new technology will create EXVLQHVVPHDQLQJ³WKLVWHFKQRORJ\ZLOOPDNH XVPRQH\LIZHFDQ¿JXUHRXWKRZWRVHOOLW´7KH companies that use the technology-oriented ap- proach to e- and m-business fund the development and commercialisation of the majority of new e- and m-technology. Companies with a core competence in other areas than R&D usually do their e- and m-busi- ness by using the business-oriented approach (see Figure 2) and utilise available or future e- and m-technology in their core business areas. Their e- and m-business supports their core business areas, and often the decision to adopt e- and m- EXVLQHVVFRPSRQHQWVLVMXVWL¿HGRQFRVWVDYLQJV or maintaining competitive advantage. The business-oriented approach is based on the notion that we need to have a good business FRQFHSWDQGUHYHQXHORJLFWKHQ¿QGWKHPDWFKLQJ WHFKQRORJ\WRUHDOLVHLW7KLVLQFOXGHV¿QGLQJFRVW savings for an existing business, and the basis of WKHDSSURDFKLV³:HFRXOGPDNHPRQH\LIZH had this technology.” The separation of the technology- and busi- ness-oriented approaches may seem to be trivial, because no matter which approach we have to achieve success, a company needs to have both the right technology and the right revenue logic. Indeed, it is intuitive, however, it is too often . Competition and Cooperation. Kowalczyk, R., et al. (2002). Integrating mobile and intelligent agents in advanced e -business: A survey. In Proceedings of Agent Technologies, Infrastructures, Tools, and. University, Finland Anna Sell Åbo Akademi University, Finland Ville Harkke Åbo Akademi University, Finland Bill Anckar Omena Hotellit Oy / IAMSR, Finland ABSTRACT This chapter discusses using e- and m-business. understand- ing what e-commerce and m-commerce are, in this chapter, we refer to the application of e- and m-commerce techniques to business as using e- and m-business components. There are, and