Trusted Third-party Services in COSM

Abstract

In the near future we can expect to use global communication networks at negligible communication costs - therefore it is becoming increasingly profitable for commercial network service providers to achieve online availability. The services provided may be implemented as software application modules with operational interfaces that require calling clients to follow a service-specific protocol. Some of these network services may adhere to common access standards (as already well-known from the ISO RDA-standardisation effort for remote database access), others are too individualistic or volatile for a reasonable standardisation. If application level standards are too specific or restrictive, service providers lack significant features which distinguishes them from competitors. Moreover, the process of standardisation itself often hinders a profitable service offer as an "early mover" on an EM. After having established a service access standard, potential competitors have to conform to agreed interface types. There is thus a recognised trade-off between standardisation on the one side, and both timeto-market and competitiveness on the other. In contrast to such standardised services there are so called unclassified services, which lack any standardised interface and provide a functionality that is either not specified, or only informally by a text readable for human users - as known from interactive World-Wide-Web (WWW) servers. However, a WWW-based service can be offered immediately after a distinct demand for specific information is recognized and - without any restrictive standardisation - it may provide an individual flavour, increasing its competitiveness compared to other providers.