To help you understand the jargon used, we have put together a brief glossary of e-business terms.

eBusiness Glossar

Please choose a letter.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

I

Icon

Icons are pictograms or small image elements that are used in graphic user interfaces as pictorial supplements and which can be used, e.g. to call up programs or similar.

Identrus

A global banking consortium established to "trust-enable" every stage of a transaction through to actual payment. Promotes the use of PKI systems within the financial industry.

IMT-2000 (International Mobile Telecommunications-2000)

An ITU-approved standard, employing 3 wideband-CDMA (W-CDMA) specifications. The single carrier portion is intended as a 3G bridge for current GSM networks.

Information Broker

This is a new profession that is responsible for the search and compilation of firm information in the WWW as per order.

Infotainment

Derived from "Information" and "Entertainment": This describes a multimedia communication form in which growth in information is linked with conversation.

Intelligent Agent

Intelligent agents are tools that make Internet search engines more intelligent. That is to say, they not only reflect the frequency of occurrence of words, but also the meaning of a text.

Internet

The largest worldwide computer network that consists of networks connected with one another.

Internet Keyed Payment (IKP)

Created by IBM, a group of secure payment protocols to enable customers purchase goods and services securely over the Web.

Intranet

An internal company network based on Internet protocol. Intended for speedy and convenient distribution of corporate information.

IP

Abbreviation for "INTERNET Protocol".

IP address

An IP address - also called a URL - (still) consists of four bytes (IPv4). In order to combat the meanwhile restricted number of IP addresses, Version 6 of the Internet protocol (IPv6) - consisting of six bytes has been developed, but is not yet in use.

ISA (Intelligent Software Agents)

Search program for users that, for example, finds the most economical offers for a product and, thus, guarantees the consumers a price comparison that is barely possible in traditional commerce.

ISDN

The Integrated Services Digital Network (service-integrated digital network) unites all the telecommunication services for the transmission of speech and data in a standardized digital network and extends them by new properties and features. In addition to the greater range and better speech quality, ISDN offers a lower susceptibility to interference and a considerable increase of the data transfer rate as a result of digital speech transmission.

ISP

Abbreviation of "INTERNET Service Provider" (often simply called Provider): this means companies or institutions that operate partial networks of the INTERNET. Each ISP attempts to provide a smooth exchange with the networks of the other providers. Usually the PoPs (Point of Presence) operate local access points to the INTERNET, i.e. the nodes for dialing at local rates.

Issuer

A financial institution that issues payment cards, such as credit or debit cards.