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The Best of 'Reader Comments': Smartcards, e-marketplaces and Apple
Each week silicon.com is inundated with comments from you, our readers. Here are the best from the last seven days...

By editorial@silicon.com

Published: Friday 06 October 2000

Smartcards, stupid idea?
Following a story about future smartcard charges, followed up on last week's Behind the Headlines show, viewers were quick to respond, either backing the technology or our old friend cash...
http://www.silicon.com/a40009

--Not so, smartcards need time
By Noel Privett Wednesday 4th October 2000 - 6:25pm
Professor Watkins is missing the point when he says smartcards are competing with cash. How on earth can you use cash on the internet? He says Swindon was a failure, but it wasn't. The trial was a great technological and social success. It worked, and the people who used it liked it.

Traditional mechanisms can be slow and insecure, and they can exclude people without access to bank accounts - children and young people, in particular, who are the real e-envoys.

Mondex is a growing force in countries like Japan, Canada, France, Norway and South Korea (and in the UK you can buy, load and use a card over the internet (http://www.smartaxis.com) to top up your mobile phone (http://www.e-topup.com). There are also physical and virtual world implementations globally which are converging all the time. If Mondex were just for use in the physical world, Professor Watkins would have a point. But it isn't.

--Familiarity will breed acceptance
By Richard Crookston Wednesday 4th October 2000 - 6:40pm
This item only looks at the use of the smartcard technology as it has been applied to e-purse (e.g. Visa Cash) or e-cash (e.g. Mondex) applications. The main problem in the user community is unfamiliarity (a problem most are familiar with when handling foreign notes and coins when abroad). Another problem has been a lack of card-accepting devices. The application of smartcard technology to other card-based payments, such as credit and debit, will provide the infrastructure and user familiarity required for the later introduction of new payment methods.

--But will it breed fraud?
By Matthew Clayton Wednesday 4th October 2000 - 6:25pm
To be honest I would rather they didn't even try to introduce more technological advances in money, there is already enough fraud with credit cards and debit cards, without introducing smartcards.

How will e-marketplaces work?
The jury's out on which model will win the B2B e-hub day, but there are a number of possibilities, as you told us...
http://www.silicon.com/a40012

--A threat to small suppliers, or is that just paranoia?
By John Greer Monday 2nd October 2000 - 8:58am
For SMEs who are suppliers to big companies this B2B exchange fee looks like a horrible, horrible threat.

Just how big a 'barrier to entry' is the admission fee going to be? And how many different 'entry fees' is an SME going to face? Per exchange? Per industry sector? Per customer? Per exchange operator? Will the new e-envoy have this issue near the top of her/his priority list?

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I did hear that only the paranoid survive.

--The transaction model gets a vote
By W Chalky White Wednesday 4th October 2000 - 6:25pm

As someone that has just been to a briefing about an e-marketplace (surprisingly founded on Commerce One), it surprises me that there are complaints about the transaction-priced model.

As a small company, the flat-rate costs suggested would completely preclude our participation in this type of environment. However, the model based on a (relatively) small initial joining fee followed by a transaction cost ensures we are able to compete.

If the major corporates wish to negotiate some form of flat rate, then that is fine with us, but it is blatantly anti-competitive to suggest that everyone should work along their lines. Keep the transaction model. We like it!

--Give fixed fees a chance too
By anon Wednesday 4th October 2000 - 6:25pm

Market research that Intercai Mondiale has conducted among potential users of exchanges indicates that both transaction and fixed fee based tariffs are tenable.

There is, of course, a balance of risk and reward to be satisfied and this should be reflected in the pricing adopted by individual exchanges. Businesses are used to living with services charged on a transaction basis - for example, all businesses use the telephone and postal services, both of which are charged by the transaction.

Apple and Microsoft - can't we all just get along?
Apple had an expo recently, and talked more about its affair with Microsoft. We reported some in the crowd booed references to the Redmond rival...

--A love in at the convention?
By anon Thursday 14th September 2000 - 4:16pm
I was at yesterday's event and it was only the real die-hard Mac people who booed the announcement, probably ten per cent of the whole audience if that.

The announcement was well received and the product is actually better than the PC version of Office 2000 I`m running at the moment.

...Oh, and by the way, I am more pro-PC but I would still have an G4 Cube at the top of my Christmas list!

--Embrace Microsoft
By Nigel Kieth Brazier Thursday 14th September 2000 - 7:54am
The Mac faithful should realise that the largest number of developers working for the Mac OS (outside of Apple) work for Microsoft, and if Microsoft has to split these will be Apple's greatest back-up.

--A reseller on Apple direct
By Pete Yeo Thursday 14th September 2000 - 9:33am
We all have to accept that Microsoft is possibly THE major developer for the Mac right now.

Speaking as a reseller, Apple`s decision to sell more and more online is worrying for two reasons: the first is our business, but the second is that Apple does not have the presence of Dell or Compaq outside the US and needs VARs to help users install and configure their systems with confidence.

We worry that people who'd buy a PC online,would have second thoughts about buying a Mac that way.