Data Encryption and Portability Provide Business Insurance

Recent floods and earthquakes have demonstrated
the failure of traditional disaster recovery programs
for businesses. Those few who had a disaster recovery
plan frequently found that 48 hours after the disaster
they had a fully operational back-up computer center at
a remote location, but no business. Without a full
business resumption plan, a disaster recovery plan
means nothing. Forty-three percent of companies that
experience major disasters go out of business within
one year.
What goes wrong is that most companies are unable
to fulfill their business missions with only a data
center up and running. After the disaster they had
their big computers working well at their pre-arranged
locations, their raw data was intact, but they lacked
the capability to conduct business. Those same palmtop
computers that the traveling salesmen use could have
saved many of these businesses. The entire business
operation becomes portable, operated by the employees
from whereever they are, regardless of conditions.
The Federal Express commercials on the theme of
the customer's ability to immediately obtain the status
of a delivery order are a demonstration of the power of
such a system. FedEx drivers are working with handheld
computers communicating through wireless channels, so
that each delivery is recorded on the company's
computer at the moment of delivery.
From order entry to customer support, purchasing
through production, and receiving to shipping,
information technology provides companies with new and
better ways to operate. It is an integral part of
corporate operations and plays a key role in achieving
and maintaining the competitive advantage -- and it
needs data encryption to function securely.
As legitimate business follows the example of the
drug dealers, the business becomes flexible, portable,
and nearly indestructible, because no disaster can
affect all of the components of the business.
And as this flexibility evolves, the ability to
tax the business becomes much less. The corporate
headquarters might be in the Cayman Islands, with the
sales representatives in twenty different countries,
the product manufactured in a duty-free zone in
Singapore, and shipped around the world. There's
nothing left to tax, because there is no longer a
physical place of business.
On April 19, 1994, AT&T and Xerox announced an
alliance which could make book publishing a portable
business. The companies will combine Xerox's document
management capabilities, such as the ability to access
optical storage devices, and AT&T's computing and
telecommunications expertise to allow customers to
create and distribute high-volume, lengthy documents
on-demand worldwide.
Xerox plans to distribute its new DocuTech
Publishing Series software using AT&T's wide-area
network and advanced communications devices to allow
document information to be integrated, scanned,
digitized, printed, and delivered anywhere in the
world. In practical terms, one could have a publishing
company in the Bahamas, accept customer orders on a
U.S. 800 number (so the customer would not even have to
know where the publishing company was located), and the
book or special report would be printed and shipped
from the nearest Xerox document center to the customer.
True world business -- and taxable where? Having your
computer send a document to a Xerox printing center
doesn't give you a taxable location.
Sports betting firms are already operating from
the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, using U.S. 800
numbers and charging the bets to the customer's credit
card.