The concept of e-service (short for electronic service) represents one prominent application of utilizing the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in different areas. However, providing an exact definition of e-service is hard to come by as researchers have been using different definitions to describe e-service. Despite these different definitions, it can be argued that they all agree about the role of technology in facilitating the delivery of services which make them more of electronic services.
e-services is an umbrella term for services on the Internet. E-services include e-commerce transaction services for handling online orders, application hosting by application service providers (ASPs) and any processing capability that is obtainable on the Web.
Since its conceptual inception in the late 1980s in Europe[citation needed] and formal introduction in 1993 by the US Government, the term ‘E-Government’ has now become one of the recognized research domains especially in the context of public policy and now has been rapidly gaining strategic importance in public sector modernization. E-service is one of the branches of this domain and its attention has also been creeping up among the practitioners and researchers.
E-service (or eservice) is a highly generic term, usually referring to ‘The provision of services via the Internet (the prefix ‘e’ standing for ‘electronic’, as it does in many other usages), thus e-Service may also include e-Commerce, although it may also include non-commercial services (online), which is usually provided by the government.’ (Irma Buntantan & G. David Garson, 2004: 169-170; Muhammad Rais & Nazariah, 2003: 59, 70-71).
‘E-Service constitutes the online services available on the Internet, whereby a valid transaction of buying and selling (procurement) is possible, as opposed to the traditional websites, whereby only descriptive information are available, and no online transaction is made possible.’ (Jeong, 2007).