E-commerce 5
of all those who were not supporting the new course. This first announcement was coupled with
the formation of strong alliances with such renowned software vendors as iCat, Intershop, Open
Market, and BroadVision (Glowik, 2016). During the launch, the company also announced that
its new Domain Commerce middleware would entail templates supporting the configuration of e-
commerce software from the partnering vendors.
In the subsequent phase, Hewlett-Packard introduced a new e-commerce plan aimed at
enabling their outlets to allocate system resources to their most estimable consumers and
applications to increase the friendliness of their Web sites. In order to fit in the current digital
market, HP had to come up with the Web Quality of Service (QoS) strategy with the objective of
enabling internet users claim an anticipated level of service from Web sites before being fully
engaged in e-commerce (Glowik, 2016). The management of the company observed how it was
essential to provide a predictable service; as such initiative would increase the quality of
products and services provided to customers. The Web QoS is inclusive of software, hardware,
and products that allowing service provides and firms to prioritize such functions as online sales
and banking over activities like Web browsing in the course of peak activity.
Hewlett-Packard Company has realized the essence of using e-commerce technologies as
their various outlets will be able to identify their most important customers. This identification
will rely on cookies, IP addresses, alongside other internet-based features. Consequently, the
company will be able to give priority to the identified customers, with respect to the access to
server resources. With the use of the new technologies, customers who have to wait in a queue
can console themselves with an on-screen message telling them the remaining wait time. Ideally,
the earliest product built on the Web QoS technologies was HP ServiceControl; HP shipped this
product for its HP-UX Unix operating system and HP 9000 Enterprise servers (Skinner, 2014).