Stories by Malcolm Wheatley

Jeff Bezos Takes Everything Personally

Striking a "What, me worry?" pose in the e-tailer shakeout, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and his executives remain focused on winning customers one at a time

E-Business with Jeff Bezos

Just 5 years old, Amazon.com is the bellwether for dotcom retailers, and founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is the person to talk to when stock market players get the e-jitters over turbulence in the new economy. At the company's offices in a converted Seattle hospital, CIO contributing writer Malcolm Wheatley spoke with Bezos and two of his key vice presidents-Jeffrey A. Wilke, general manager of operations, and customer service head Bill Price.

Her Majesty's Flying IT Circus

Even traditional British stoicism has a breaking point-and for more than half a million British citizens, that breaking point was sorely tested last summer by the introduction of a 120 million ($180 million) computer system at the country's Passport Agency. Processing times for passport applications stretched to eight weeks instead of the normal 10 days. As telephone calls went unanswered-over a million in May 1999 alone-people began turning up outside the agency's six regional offices to request their passports in person.

Mobile Technology: WAP High Wireless Act

The prospect is tantalizing. Imagine being able to access the Internet in much the same way that you do now--but from your cell phone. And not just for checking your e-mail while on the move, but doing serious browser-based stuff too: buying a book or CD, booking a flight, trading stock or just finding the location of the nearest Chinese restaurant or ATM. Or accessing your company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to check on the status of an order, expedite a shipment or approve a stack of purchase requisitions. Indeed, within the constraints of what can be displayed on a pocket-size screen, imagine being able to do anything that you currently do at the desktop--and some things that you can't, such as pointing your phone at a Coke machine to pay for a drink.

ERP Training Stinks

Unless you've been as out-of-touch as the Mars Polar Lander, you're doubtlessly aware that the ERP industry hasn't been performing like the marvel it was first made out to be.