The ``support'' quadrant represents specialist support centres that offer
value added information to the consumer but with relatively limited buyer
supplier integration that is reflected in a lack of customisation of the service or
product offering. Specialist support centres include technical support
information from organisations, such as IBM in the computer industry, on
products and services. Many consultancy services and academic institutions
also tend to fall into the ``support'' quadrant, offering highly creative and
leading edge knowledge but generally limited focus on the end customer
resulting in limited buyer-supplier organisational integration. Specialist
support services are typical of Internet-based information sources which are
characterised as being dynamic in nature, but often of limited commercial
concern, and as a consequence are a fluid and evolving communications
channel. Physicians provide the emergence of specialist support services with
the more recent establishment of a Web presence. In a survey, which included
86 members of a north-east chapter of the American Medical Association,
roughly 35 per cent of the respondents either have a Web site already or were
planning to establish one within the next 12 months. The sites established by
the physicians were all corporation information sites and were mainly used as a
competitive tool. Eder and Darter (1998) asserted that it is interesting to note
that intangible services such as doctor's appointments, which may not be the
most appropriate service to be transferred to an electronic channel,
nevertheless are increasing on the Internet. Moreover, physicians are mainly
micro businesses.