Papers

1. Koch, M., and Möslein, K.M., Identity Management for Ecommerce and Collaborative Applications, International Journal of Electronic Commerce / Spring 2005, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 11-29. M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2005.

2. Alhammad, M. M., & Gulliver, S. R. (2015). Persuasive Technology and Users Acceptance of E-Commerce: Exploring Perceived Persuasiveness LISS 2013 (pp. 1099-1103): Springer.

3. Hirschheim, Rudy, Richard Welke, and Andrew Schwarz. "Service-oriented architecture: Myths, realities, and a maturity model." MIS Quarterly Executive 9, no. 1 (2010): 37-48.

The scenario should be studied and understood in relationship to the above papers.

Commercial Matching Service Scenario

www.buycomputer.com is a fictitious website to match consumers who wish to purchase computers with businesses who are able to supply them.  It works as follows:

1- Consumers can visit the website and specify the computer they wish to purchase by selecting from a standard set of attributes and options (monitor, memory, etc.). Then specify the price they are willing to pay (taxes and shipping included), the address the computer must be shipped to, and the date by which the computer must be received.

2- Their offer to purchase a computer is made official when the offer is secured by a credit card that is authorized to enact payment immediately should a business be found that will supply the computer to the stated location, for the stated price, by the stated date.

3- Firms can visit the website and search the list of computers that consumers have offered to purchase.  Then when a they see a computer they are willing to supply, they can accept the offer and commit to delivering the computer under the terms specified.

4- Payment is enacted from the consumer's credit card to the business's merchant account at the moment the offer is accepted by the business.

5- A purchase order is maintained including a status to indicate whether the purchase has been fulfilled (i.e. the computer delivered) satisfactorily.

Explain how www.buycomputer.com could implement a secure service that would allow software programs running at a business to communicate over the internet to automatically find offers, accept them, enact the payment transaction, and check when the purchase order has been fulfilled. 

Define, in high level terms (not code), the API calls that would be supported making clear the types of inputs and outputs for each call. Illustrate with a simple scenario that shows the sequence of calls for a typical purchase. 

What would you do to ensure that the transactions are secured, the identity of the businesses are authenticated, and the purchase orders are fulfilled satisfactorily according to the specified terms?