the IIC Marketplace A number of definitions for eBusiness exist, but generally the term refers to the entire spectrum of business - including processes, transactions, and technologies - as it is conducted over the Internet and related networks. eBusiness is really just today's buzzword for a concept that is not entirely new. Electronic business-to-business transactions have been prevalent in many industries for years. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), for example, is a refined technology that continues to support semi-standardized electronic Chapter 2 - A Detailed Look at OSS business transactions and value-added networks (VANs), especially for batch data transfers. New technologies and networks, such as XML and the Internet, are slowly replacing older systems, but the older infrastructure still plays important roles in eBusiness' evolution and in corporations' transition to eBusiness practices. Looking ahead at what is new about today's eBusiness requires a greater level of automation and real-time data exchange than has ever been achieved before. For IICs, eBusiness takes on an added level of complexity. IICs, like companies in other industries, use the Internet to conduct business. The business they conduct is building and providing the Internet to many other industries and consumers. IICs are responsible for providing the reliable, adaptable and accommodating foundation on which Internet users and businesses depend. All of these factors, which are the cornerstones for eBusiness' success, tie directly to OSS. Developing eBusiness for the Internet infrastructure, the underlying base for eBusiness for all other industries, means creating what can be called eOSS - a marriage of eBusiness technologies and processes with integrated, automated OSS platforms. If the next-generation Internet is the foundation for eBusiness, eOSS is the foundation for the next generation Internet. Throughout this chapter we have seen how OSS integration is critical to many of the processes IICs rely on to conduct business with custome