E-Commerce versus EDI 3

[DEAL]

Whats the primary difference between EDI and E-Commerce?<br>
What are the difference if any and how are they different?<br>
Is EDI on Internet considered E-Commerce?

 

[Roundley]

At least one school of thought says that EDI was the original e-commerce, and internet based activity is just an extension (Kalakota and Whinston, Frontiers of Electronic Commerce, 1995). On the business-to-business (B2B) side, this is probably true. EDI implementations on the business-to-customer (B2C) side are uncommon--customers don't want to/cannot implement the necessary system support.<br>
<br>
Principal difference between EDI and most common e-commerce is that EDI is highly structured by an internationally accepted and regulated format, and usually (at present) takes place on closed networks (ie, not the Internet). (Common e-Commerce in this case is taken to be forms-based ordering with credit card payments--principally B2C.)<br>
<br>
EDI on the Internet would certainly qualify as e-commerce, but is not all that e-commerce is.

 

[wingsgary]

We currently use both types. EDI is still reliant on VANs (value added networks) for data interpretation and transfer whereas with E commerce works as an open platform on the internet. Plus a huge cost savings to boot!

 

[slok]

I think a comparison is not necessary.<br>
<br>
EDI is a specified word for Electronic Data Interface. (or something like that)<br>
Nonehteless, it is used in propietary system for middleman system to talk to suppliers<br>
and vendors. So cost is high.<br>
<br>
E-Commerce is a more generic term that is widely used.<br>
The truth of E-Commerce is really about conducting your business in the <br>
digital age. Software development is still very much the same...<br>

 

[BabuSathyanarayana]

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) was about getting (commerce) transactional applications to talk to each other using a network link typically leased lines. i.e. server to server talk mostly. <br>
<br>
In those days we had no common application (ISO layer) layer standard that was widely accepted as a standard and hence people all built their own EDI systems to roughly talk the same language.<br>
<br>
With the growth of the internet, the whole world is now IP wired. So it is easy to connect servers using the public domain network. At the same time standard application level protocols are available http/https for example. Also consider the impact of xml. Data representation is now universal so we can really write applications that can accept data in the universal xml format and expect it to work with any other application as long as the data structure is valid for the purpose. Also an application can write output xml format and expect it to be understood by other applications. All one needs to do is publish the data format in xml and that is the data interface. One can go on and on. <br>
<br>
The moral of the story is that we are heading into a stage where co-operative existence of a number electronic commerce applications is a reality. It is a bit like what happened when Microsoft published Windows API standard to get a lot of applications to be built for Windows. Hundreds of apps were written for Windows. Similarly we now have a possibility where thousands of ecommerce applications can be written each capable of talking the language of the other.<br>

 

[1manedp]

A vote for the usefulness of Tek-Tips!<br>
<br>
Although I instinctively could 'feel' the difference between EDI and e-commerce, I might've found it difficult to explain to non-techies. This particular discussion thread provides me with a number of ways to go with an explanation as well as a reference. <br>
<br>
Please pardon me for writing where I am not adding to the discussion, but I wanted to thank all the previous writers for their insight.