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Lesson 8 Web site development software
Objective Assess Web site development software.

Website Development Software

You will need a simple HTML template for your e-commerce solution.
You will require in-house development software that combines HTML creation, database management, user tracking, payment gateway options, and the ability to distribute tasks across several different programs and servers. Due to the costs involved in such a product, your choice must closely match the needs of your e-commerce objectives. You should weigh issues of cost, control, and customization.

Elements involved in the product choice include:
  1. Ease of use
  2. Cost
  3. Support software requirements
  4. Hardware
  5. Development learning curves
  6. Scalability

Promote Product or Service

In spite of the many differences in available products, any product you choose should do one thing:
It should make selling a product or service as simple as possible.
Both IBM Net.Commerce and Microsoft SiteServer E-Commerce Edition work well with smaller companies and machines.
Realistically, any system running these two products should be running at least 128 MB of memory, have SCSI I/O, and have at least 10 GB of hard drive space to implement this software comfortably.
Each of these products also requires considerable training to use them properly. Although each product is graphical user interface (GUI) based and endeavors to make site creation as simple as possible, you will have to configure the following items:
  1. SQL
  2. Databases
  3. Payment gateways
  4. Java
If you are a developer, you will need specialized knowledge to use these tools properly.
Internet Service Providers
In the next lesson, the importance of support and database software requirements will be discussed.