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Editor's note: The Internet sometimes seems to be overrun by salespeople. Chris Barling, chief operating officer of e-commerce specialist Actinic Software (www.actinic.co.uk), believes that net-workers need to work with them.

E-commerce is seeing a replay of a familiar theme: the clash between IT and marketing. Marketing people often refer disparagingly to IT staffers as "propeller-heads." They might explain, for example, that an initiative failed because "the techies were let off the leash."

The last few decades have seen both the marketing and IT disciplines move to the forefront of business thinking. Yet few things more clearly illustrate the rift between corporate departments than the relationship that typically exists between these two.

Although late to the technology party, most marketing teams are now very familiar with IT's potential. Credit for this lies with the Internet, which straddles the two disciplines in a way that is...