Since mid-1995, exponential growth of the Internet has broughtthe number of pages on the World Wide Web from about seven millionto approximately 800 million by mid-1999, according to a statisticcited by Gas Industry Standards Board (GISB) Executive Director RaeMcQuade.

Explosive growth of the Internet has been nothing if not a boonto GISB. “When GISB first started coming up with Internetstandards, people said, ‘It’s not ready. It’s not secure enough.Some kid in his garage in Ohio is going to be reading ournominations,'” said Jim Buccigross, chairman of GISB’s executivecommittee and director and general counsel for the NationalRegistry of Capacity Rights. “This amazing thing happened. TheInternet has simply taken off. It has simply grown beyond even thewildest expectations. GISB is now taking, I believe, full advantageof that and will continue to do that into the future.”

Bolstering his argument for the Internet future, Buccigrossnoted that IBM has said it expects 25% of its revenues this year tobe generated by electronic commerce. He made his remarks at GISB’sfifth annual meeting in San Antonio, TX, Monday.

And similar to the way deregulation is bringing supplier choiceto gas consumers, GISB and the growing Internet are bringingcommunications choices to gas industry players. Buccigross notedthe industry can communicate electronically using electronic datainterchange (EDI), interactive Web sites, informational postings tothe World Wide Web, and there is more to come.

And GISB itself is moving along, dispatching far more quicklythe standards development tasks at hand. Buccigross said justrecently GISB has been dealing with requests for initiation,clarification and interpretation of standards more quickly thanthey are coming into the organization. In fact, GISB is now poisedto offer its own seal of approval to those developing softwaresystems that embrace its standards.

GISB is offering certification to companies that have developedsoftware to meet GISB’s standards. “Virtually every other standardsorganization in the world does some type of certification,”Buccigross said. “Think of Underwriters Laboratories, the number offire safety certifications.”

Those seeking certification of their software products will paya $7,500 fee to GISB if they are GISB members. The fee fornon-members is $10,000. Certification will be done throughindependent certifiers approved by GISB. So far, four companieshave applied to GISB to be certifiers: Arthur Andersen, Ernst &Young, IBM Corp. and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. “GISB can now certifysoftware through these independent certifiers and go out and verifyand say, ‘Yes, this software will meet this criteria for GISBstandards.'” Buccigross also said the certification process “willmake a little money for GISB.”

Finally, GISB’s work on electronic bulletin board Internetimplementation standards is well ahead of schedule. “They weren’teven supposed to be completed until Q1 of 2000. They were completedAug. 27, 1999,” Buccigross said. “Implementation of these standardsis now ongoing.”

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