商贸往来口译实践:第一篇(英译汉) Passage 1 (E---C)

第一篇(英译汉) Passage 1 (E---C)

相关词语Related Words and Expressions

Networking technology is still in its infancy 网络技术仍处于初级阶段

the World Wide Web 万维网；环球网

interactions 相互作用, 相互影响

transaction 交易

IBM (International Business Machines) （美国）国际商用机器公司

e-business 电子商务

digital 数字化

augment 增大; 增加; 补充

a fairly predictable, three-stage process 一条基本可以预测的“三步曲”式的道路

Networking technology is still in its infancy, yet it has reached already the point where we can call it a new mass medium.

Less than five years after the birth of the World Wide Web, some 90 million people are online around the world, and that number will be hundreds of millions before too long.

Here in China, the number of Internet users has nearly doubled since just last October, to more than one million users. And I've seen statistics that say your Internet population will exceed seven million people by the year 2001.

Not too long ago, the prevailing view was that the Net was about looking up information, or that it was a medium for interpersonal communication, a replacement for the telephone or post office.

Today, it's evident that the Net represents a transformation far more profound than online“chat”groups or giving people access to sports scores and weather reports. It has emerged as a powerful means for parties of every type to conduct interactions of every type. Certainly, it's changing the way things are bought and sold. Electronic commerce is booming. Even the most conservative estimates say that it will be at least a $200 billion marketplace by the turn of the century (which is only 500 days away)—most of that volume in business- to-business transactions.

At IBM, we use a slightly more descriptive term. We talk about e-business to describe all of the vital transactions that will be conducted on the Net.

E-business includes transactions among employees inside an enterprise; among trading partners in a supply chain; and of course, the networked transactions that transform the way educators teach students, physicians treat patients, and the way governments deliver services to citizens.

All of these interactions will become digital. They won't necessarily replace the kind of physical transactions we know today, but they will augment them.

In projects with customers around the world, we're learning that when they make the move to e-business, they follow a fairly predictable, three-stage process.

First, putting up information on a web site：Product catalogs, academic course listings and a list of phone numbers to call for more information. The second stage is, enabling some form of interaction, typically for customer service. Allowing a customer to track the status of an overnight package is one example. The third, and most important stage of electronic commerce is the one that represents the real transformation and the major payoff. It's when the enterprise takes the step to allow real Net-based transactions.

This kind of decision-making is the real revolution in the networked world. It's not just about technology. Because when banks and schools and airlines, hospitals and governments use the Net to allow people to execute transactions, they have to make fundamental changes to the way they currently do things.

(Excerpts from A Speech of Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Chairman and CEO of IBM in Beijing)