Abstract:

This paper describes the potential effects of the advent of the “network computer” on computing in quantitative market research. These effects may be expected to be beneficial, both for the activities of data collection and data analysis. Not the least of these should be an emancipation of the researcher from commitment to particular IT vendors. “Best of breed” applications may be used for all research requirements because the cost of selecting and using alternative applications will be minimal. The attractiveness of this objective will stimulate researchers to demand standards for the efficient transmission of data between the various survey applications. The reader is assumed to be familiar with the concept of World Wide Web servers and browsers, and their disposition on the public Internet and private Intranets.