ANNOTATION

 

This is a very special autumn – the tenth one after Latvia Republic regained its independence. It is also a harvest time for those IT and communication companies which were brave enough to be among the pioneers and serious enough to stay in business and develop in the environment of increasing competition. Among these are companies DATI, EUnet Latvia, LVEI, the magazine Sakaru Pasaule (though in a transformed way) and some others. If we tried to compare Latvia present communication market with that of ten years ago, we could say that it has turned from a desert with some oases into a green, fruitful valley with a vast variety of communication species.

 

In this issue:

 

Nanosystems – the future without concern

(pages 20-22)

Most probably the future prospects of medicine are closely connected with nanomedical treatment. It is based on micron-scale nanorobots assembled from nanoscale parts. The typical nanomedical treatment will consist of an injection of perhaps a few cubic centimetres of micron-sized nanorobots suspended in fluid. Each species of medical nanorobot will be designed to accomplish a specific task inside a patient’s body. There will be many different ways, how to communicate with the machines as they do their work: one of the simplest is to send broadcast-type acoustic messages to and from nanorobots. It is convenient to establish even an internal communication network to collect local messages from all the nanorobots, working inside the patient’s body, and pass them along to the central monitor.

Nanomedicine will eliminate virtually all common diseases of the 20^th century, all medical pain and suffering, and allow the free extension of human capabilities and mental abilities.

 

NAIS – my third lawyer

(pages 60-63)

In September the tenth anniversary of NAIS, one of the first software products in independent Latvia, is celebrated. NAIS or Information System of Normative Acts is a very vast electronic data base comprising nearly all vitally important laws, resolutions, instructions, normative acts, issued by different state institutions, starting from 1886 till nowadays. NAIS local and Internet version is elaborated by the company DATI.

There are more than 40000 normative acts in the commercial version of NAIS, the range of which is regularly expanded. At the present moment there about 570 subscribers for both Internet and local version of NAIS. It means that it is necessary not only for lawyers and state institutions but also for private companies and in fact everybody who wants to clear out any legislative item. NAIS is nice – say the partners of DATI in western countries. NOT is not only nice but also vitally necessary for every true member of information society.

 

Customer service: time for changes

(page 72)

Recently Lattelekom has worked out a new customer service conception – since October all the former customer service centres will be closed and the customers will be served via free phone 8008040. Latvia is the first among the Baltic countries to introduce these new service principles that are successfully used by Sonera and have turned out to be very effective: no more queues, no waste of time and all the traditional services can be conveniently offered and received by phone. Lattelekom call centre operators are appropriately prepared, so that they would be able to cope with the increased intensity of calls (it has increased from 4000 to 90000 per day). Part of the former customer service centre functions like selling of phones and services is delegated to partners of Lattelekom and to the new telecommunication shop chain Telering.

 

mCommerce: market potential

(page 102-104)

British market research agency e-MORI has conducted potential mCommerce market research in six countries – Great Britain, South Korea, Italy, USA, Brazil and Finland. 11 295 end users from general public were asked their views on mCommerce and it was quite surprising to realise that the interest of people in mCommerce is roughly eight-fold compared to the number of those using eCommerce today. Specific drivers and barriers vary in each market according to different social structures, cultural preferences use and access to technology. It is interesting that mCommerce potential is bigger in those markets where there are less eCommerce and Internet users. So, for example, in Italy, Brazil and to a lesser extent South Corea, potential early adopters are of higher magnitude than current users of eCommerce. In Brazil and Italy the uptake of mCommerce could potentially be 16 and 20 times as high as that of current eCommerce. This phenomena is very closely connected with freedom, mobility and easy usage of mobile phone. End users have also reasonable level of confidence in such a service as mCommerce transactions are performed via operator, so all the confident data of transactors are not publicly available.