His grandfather: Bargain Finder

Armed with the knowledge of Bargain Finder's experience, the two German students who developed Acses built their success on a close collaboration with the online stores whose prices they compare. The latter reward Acses by a system of commission on each sale generated by its system.

The relatively low cost of developing these systems will probably result in an increase in their numbers. They will soon be popping up everywhere on Internet. Creating a system of world-wide price comparisons is obviously much simpler than setting up an online store with a logistic that allows it to serve its customers efficiently and profitably throughout the world.

Acses is a software agent ... or at least, it is an agent. For the moment it is not very highly developed, as all it does is present a table compiling the results of its search of a number of data bases. In reality it is a simple robot, carrying out simple, predefined tasks, always in the same sequence. However, it may represent the beginning of a new generation of commercial tools which will soon be able to satisfy the increasing demands of Internet users for better information. The chapter of this book on search agents will explain why, in less than five years' time, they will be the automatic choice of every consumer who wants to buy on Internet. But these will be much more intelligent than Acses : they will understand your wishes and even anticipate them by offering suggestions, or by letting you know the minute they've found a particularly good bargain.

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