This paper distinguishes the three fundamental business design patterns: control, cooperation and autonomy. Today, most e-Business designs are not balanced, because they over-prioritize control. Balance is achieved when one basic pattern is the top priority, while the other two patterns are not ignored. The paper explains how to use these patterns to create one of three balanced e-Business designs: e-Commerce, e-Broker and e-Barter. Market forces are now taking place to incentivize companies to become more adaptable. This can take one of two forms: a) a better balanced e-Commerce design, or b) a shift from e-Commerce to e-Broker. This paper presents more adaptable design architectures for e-Commerce and e-Broker. It concludes by giving several reasons why a balanced e-Barter design cannot be reliably conjectured at this time.
