Studies summarized by the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development show that companies in developing countries face problems executing e-commerce strategies. To determine which barriers might be transitional and which might be persistent, a longitudinal study was conducted of companies in five Caribbean countries. Interviews were conducted with 23 companies in 2004. Interviews were repeated in 2008 with those companies that were still in operation. Some improvements were found in general telecommunications support, but persistent barriers were found in logistics services, and new problems were identified in increased competition and increased shipping costs. As a result of these changes, the general focus of managers shifted from establishing web sites and making them visible to more general managerial tasks connected to finding a place in an increasingly competitive environment. The results of this study suggest improved strategies for companies in developing countries seeking to use e-commerce to expand their markets.

In model based formal methods, incompatible tools for different techniques is the norm. However, greater applicability to industrial scale systems increasingly requires combining the strengths of different techniques, in line with the verification grand challenge. The Frog tool embodies a construct-based specification syntax, and its meta-language Frog-CCL allows the generic configuration of both a constructs syntax and its proof obligations. For a specific system, Frog generates the system's verification conditions mechanically from the generic ones. Relationships between systems such as refinement and retrenchment can be configured. An example retrenchment between two simple systems illustrates the technique.

Studies summarized by the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development continue to show that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries face particular problems with managerial skills, connectivity, branding, logistics, security, and foreign competition. Yet the same studies note that barriers and e-commerce efforts vary considerably from one region of the world to another. To determine if these barriers are significant in the Caribbean region during July and August 2004, the principle investigators visited business executives in five Caribbean nations. Thirty-six businesses and government agencies were interviewed. General results showed significant e-commerce efforts underway in these countries with most enabling technologies and business systems in place. However, several major barriers were repeatedly encountered. Logistics challenges, including shipping and customs barriers, as well as recent import controls in the U.S. were frequently mentioned. Many also described a banking sector unwilling or unable to facilitate convenient electronic payment systems. Nevertheless, executives described a number of e-commerce strategies, which could be adopted by other SMEs that wish to increase their e-commerce income. The investigators present four managerial characteristics that were seen in the leading businesses. The authors hope the results of this study will suggest improved strategies for SMEs in developing countries seeking to use e-commerce to expand their markets.

This paper considers the problem of representing horizontal microprograms. Three forms of micro-parallelism are discussed: (a) Where micro-operations are concurrently executable within a single control memory clock cycle; (b) Where micro-operations are executable in a single clock cycle but are not concurrently executable, as in polyphase systems; and (c) Where there are concurrently executable micro-operations whose time of execution span several clock cycles. Language constructs for each of these forms are proposed, and their features discussed.