ALKHOBAR, 23 December — If you have installed the Windows XP operating system in your computer then hopefully you have heard of the "serious flaw" in the OS which lets hackers access and take control of your machine. At its website, microsoft.com, Microsoft has released what it is terming a "critical" patch. The company "strongly urges" all Windows XP customers and those using previous versions of Windows, including Windows 98, 98 SE or ME who have installed the Universal Plug and Play service to install the fix immediately.
Plug and Play is a software-based feature that lets users easily add monitors, keyboards and other components to their computers. Microsoft has advised that the security vulnerability stems from a flaw in that feature which leaves an Internet-connected computer completely open to hackers.
I don’t want to say to Microsoft, "I told you so," but honestly I did. I sent them an e-mail in July 2001 commenting on certain security issues. They replied that my concerns about a hacker popping into my machine and ripping off my data without a trace, really shouldn’t be a concern at all because the new OS was incredibly secure. Despite the strongest reassurances about XP from Microsoft, I kept the old and awful MS OS that I’ve been using and now I’m truly grateful that I did.
Back in November, "eWeek" carried an interview with Microsoft’s Jim Allchin, the vice president of Microsoft’s Platform Group, in which he stated that "Windows XP is dramatically more secure than Windows 2000 or any of the prior systems." Every time Microsoft releases a new OS they make a comment like that and every time they are wrong.
Saudi Telecom Company must have made a fortune during Eid due to all the SMS messages that were sent. I couldn’t kill the incomings to my phone fast enough. Then there were the lunatics who clogged up my inbox with Eid greeting cards. Can you image that with the limited bandwidth we have, people actually sent out Eid greetings with a size of 800KB or higher to everyone in their address books? Those of us who were working the night of the 30th of Ramadan were ready to commit hara-kiri because the Internet was running extremely slow and several regional sites were overwhelmed. What could it be we wondered? Hackers? Denial of service? Then it dawned on us — attack of the Eid greetings was in progress.
An attack of a different kind has now taken over. A newly discovered computer worm, sent under the guise of a holiday greeting, has popped up in the United States and Europe. The Reeezak worm enters a computer as an e-mail message in Microsoft Outlook with a subject line "Happy New Year" and an attachment — "Christmas.exe" — that a recipient may think is an electronic Christmas card. A message in the body of the Reeezak e-mail is complete with misspellings and reads: "Hii I can’t describe my feelings But all i can say is Happy New Year :) bye." The worm can disable selective keys on the infected computer’s keyboard and delete all the files found in the Windows System Directory, rendering the computer inoperable. Reeezak is expected to be especially deadly because people are receiving so many greetings at this time of the year, that they are just clicking and opening anything that comes from an address they know.
We’re all back to business this week so let’s talk about some B2B. Dubai-based Tejari.com is continuing its aggressive campaign to stimulate growth. The B2B marketplace has over 400 members now and it is working to expand into new markets. Tejari is hoping to position itself as the region’s business gateway to global markets.
Tejari is an open, horizontal e-business community that allows companies to buy and sell goods and services using all purchasing methods. Beyond e-commerce, Tejari can also help companies to extend their market reach, access a global supply base, instantaneously share information, and collaborate effectively across the supply chain.
For example, within the digital marketplace, suppliers and buyers can create their own online profile, which they can use to offer their goods and services or request product quotes to purchase from the exchange community. The goods are then purchased through an electronic approval process and the order is confirmed and fulfilled by the designated supplier. The exchange will also allow participants to submit general tenders electronically and create online auctions.
Tejari celebrated its one-year anniversary in June 2001 but it has not been smooth sailing for the company despite maximum support from Dubai’s government. The concept of marketplaces has been slow to catch on internationally. In addition, the dotcom disaster and global economic crisis have created a challenging environment for the growth of electronic marketplaces. To encourage companies to sign on for services, Tejari has suspended transaction fees at least through the first quarter of 2002 and perhaps even longer. When asked about membership fees the company was reluctant to give specifics, stating that the fees differed depending on such variables as online catalog items and number of users. Tejari is urgently working to build their user base and probably would not have made it this far without the deep pockets of Dubai’s government.
Several factors may help Tejari in the new year. The company has completed all the training of Dubai’s many government departments and those departments should be shunting more of their procurement activities through Tejari as per a government directive. The exchange is built on Oracle software and despite it being Oracle’s only active Arab marketplace, Oracle has announced that it will fund full Arabization of the marketplace software. Tejari is hoping that once the Arabization is complete, more companies in nearby markets, such as Saudi Arabia, will be tempted to join.
According to Sheikha Lubna Al-Qasimi, Tejari’s managing director, when Tejari first began, the marketplace concept was immature and thus the company had to work very hard and spend time and resources in education and awareness activities. However, she feels that this effort was worthwhile because the effect has been to build credibility for Tejari as a long-term player in the market. Now the time has come to look at expansion and partnership.
"I did not want to go and run around and try to get partners until I could demonstrate total concept," said Sheikha Lubna. "Today I actually have an excellent total concept not only in the region but even in Europe. The supplier adoption cycle rates that we have are much higher than some of the European and American ones. We actually have made Tejari grow in a time when there have been a lot of failures in the United States. So that’s a lot of credibility for us."
In the Kingdom there is much talk about B2B with the Saudi banks and some major Saudi companies working to build their own marketplaces. Sheikha Lubna believes that any new marketplaces must be complimentary to Tejari not competitors if they are to be financially viable. She emphasized that she would be very interested in forming partnerships which would be essential not only for the exchanges themselves but for the health of B2B in the region.
"My interest when we created Tejari was to look at the region as a trading hub," she said. "In my belief when you create segmented markets and fragmented markets, they become limited."
Sheikha Lubna would welcome a partnership between Tejari and the Saudi banks if they formed a financial marketplace or exchange for financial services.
"Banks are very good in their core services focusing on financial services," she explained. "There is a lot of Net banking that takes place but a lot of it is not focused on business. They are looking more at consumers. There are so many functionalities and services such as electronic letters of credit and prequalifications that can support people like Tejari for example in the financial services. They should focus as a consortium to do that, to complement my service so we can be partners. I am welcoming this. My core business is as a market operator. I have people asking me if I’m going to create a bank. I would never create a bank because banks know their business very well. I know my market very well. I deal with thinking of procurement in terms of buyers. I know how that works. I know how the retailing is. I know how the products are actually being serviced. I know my cataloging. That’s my bread and butter. I know that very well and I do it well. I have demonstrated that. I have my talents. They have their talents. I can work with them easily and nicely."
Over the past few months, Sheikha Lubna has been meeting with representatives of those entities considering setting up B2B exchanges in the Kingdom in hopes of agreeing on joint cooperation. Earlier in the year, Tejari formed a partnership with the 19 chambers of commerce throughout Saudi Arabia. The partnership gives Tejari direct access to the key enterprises within the Kingdom with the goal of increasing their participation in its marketplace. Online procurement initiatives currently developing in Saudi Arabia as well as the size of its buying potential make it a fundamental market for Tejari’s membership.
"I don’t believe that we should think in terms of boundaries any more," concluded Sheikha Lubna. "There are a lot of buyers who come to the UAE from Saudi Arabia and there are a lot of buyers from the UAE who go to Saudi Arabia. We have a lot of interrelationships in terms of trade as a community among us. Why should we create the boundaries in these specific markets in the virtual world when we know that the virtual world was made to be a community without boundaries?"