Have you ever wondered about things like:

• Did e-commerce start with the Internet and the Web?
• Whatís the difference between "e-commerce" and "e-business"?
• If the Web is so great, why did all those ".com" companies fail?
• Are web services the next big thing in "e-business"?

Internet technologies have provided the seed for an explosive growth in the use of information systems to engage and interact with customers and other business partners.  However business success in this constantly evolving and changing area has required both the successful application of technology and corresponding and complementary changes to business process and practice.  This talk will outline several key information technologies, how they have been applied to e-business, and the nature of both the business and technical challenges that have been presented and overcome.  Looking toward the future, some new technologies will be discussed along with the challenges they bring and how they may fit into the ever-evolving e-business landscape.

Biography
John A. Foster is a Principal E-Business Architect in Kodak's Worldwide Information Systems organization.  Over the past four years he has played a key role in several of Kodak's trade customer and consumer oriented e-business initiatives.  John began his 27-year Kodak career in information systems, and then spent a decade in product development followed by a 5-year assignment in business process improvement before returning to the information systems domain four years ago.  His assignments have involved software development, system architecture, business architecture, project management, marketing and customer service.  This breadth of assignments has given him the opportunity to experience the challenges of business and technology development from both the information systems and product engineering perspectives.

John earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Union College in 1974 and an MBA from the Simon School (at the University of Rochester) in 1979, and has been a member of the IEEE for 31 years.  He is a lifelong resident of upstate New York, and is married with a 7-year old son.

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