For businesses, the challenge of managing data centers and electronic commerce, analysts agree, is huge.
Right now, that category -- managed, in-house online booking -- is so new that Internet commerce analysts don't even track it in projections.
[C6.] Small Internet Retailers Gain Web Advantage In the fast-changing world of Internet commerce, analysts say, smaller merchants have gained two important advantages: Google, and consumers who are fussier than ever.
"Businesses require physical documents that arrive on time," said Melissa Shore, digital commerce analyst at Jupiter Communications.
"The sites can't duplicate the department-store experience," said Mike May, a digital commerce analyst with Jupiter Communications.
Some consumers do not feel safe buying directly from a Facebook storefront, said Krista Garcia, a social commerce analyst with a market research firm, eMarketer.
"Videos changed the way people could view porn because they were able to watch in the privacy of their homes," said Barry Parr, an electronic commerce analyst with International Data Corporation.
"It is a product that is neat from a consumer and technological perspective," said Rob Leathern, a commerce analyst with Jupiter Media Metrix, an Internet research firm based in New York.
But Thomas P. Berquist, senior electronic commerce analyst with Goldman , Sachs said that of the 55 competitors in the field, SAP leads with 10,000, Oracle follows with 6,000, and PeopleSoft has 3,000.
Now Mr. Blodget, 33, has become senior Internet commerce analyst at a much bigger Wall Street firm, Merrill Lynch & Company, and the oracle many investors counted on to make sense of the America Online-Time Warner deal.
"The idea is to grow real big real fast," says Ian Morton, a business-to-business electronic commerce analyst with Hambrecht & Quist.
