October - 1999 - issue > Openfile

Every new technology takes time to scale up and mature. Once it proves its effectiveness and potential, a new technology faces mission-critical, mass-scale applications - and it is these that will finally prove its mettle. Satellite technology is a prominent example: used in specialized military, remote sensing and a few specialized communication applications, before it was thrown to the challenges of television, telecommunications infrastructure and now global broadband data and voice transmission. The Internet today is going through the transition of scaling up from being an information tool to its current status, accommodating large scale applications such as financial transactions, voice communications and -- the subject of our cover feature this month -- health care.

The fundamentals for success that apply to the drugstore.com category of online stores are just about the same as those that apply to any e-commerce venture: convenience, content, reliability, simplicity, pricing, marketing, partnerships and a well-organized, seamless Web site. Beyond that, drugstore.com is selling medicines on the Internet, much like eToys.com is selling toys and CDNow.com is selling music. Learn more about the drugstore.com way of drug delivery in "e-drugs" on page 44.

The scenario changes drastically when you consider Healtheon, a company operating in the area of Internet-based health care transaction services and thus intricately connected with how the health care industry works. Because of the mission-critical nature of its work, Healtheon faces serious infrastructure and scalability issues. Despite the fact that creating this application is a major challenge for the Internet infrastructure, its implementation will be a huge service to an industry where transactions and documentation is voluminous and the existing systems myriad and highly inefficient. Read all about the dashing Healtheon partnership between living Silicon Valley legend Jim Clark and co-founder Pavan Nigam in "Prescription for an Ailing Industry" on page 54. Putting all this in perspective is "IT at the Heart of Healthcare," on page 50, an insightful, authoritative article that encapsulates the present health care industry scenario and the information technologies that serve it.

Information technology is creating a new multipolar world -- centralization of computing power and information and ubiquity of access. We are increasingly getting enmeshed in the new networked economy, where each individual has a 'networked personality', and regular business and personal transactions happen super efficiently. In light of these tremendous changes, we hope for the retention of the human, softer side of our lives.

We appreciate your numerous messages and emails congratulating us on completing two years and on our September si100 issue. We continue to look forward to your continuous feedback!

Yogesh Sharma