The “dot com crash,” at the turn of the present decade, was a lesson-builder. Americans should have walked away with a list of “to-do’s, or more aptly put – “things never to do again.” However, short sightedness and greed seem to be reoccurring factors built into the general population’s DNA, and destined to repeat themselves. The term “dot com” emanates from website domain names, and “com” meant that the underlying business was commercial. For instance, “org” stood for non-profit organizations and “net” referred to networks. This economic “bubble” was a result of western stock markets inflating rapidly and flying out of control due to the newly developed Internet sector. This new Internet business sector was built on a history of rapid innovation and creativity that grew so fast it shrank global communications and changed the face of doing business around the world forever.

The Age of the Internet
The 1950s through 1960s was the Age of the Mainframe computer, developed by such companies as, IBM, Honeywell, CDC, and Univac. These were large central computers linked to terminals which only accepted and displayed data. Starting in the 1960s, as transistors began to become available, lower cost mini computers built by DEC, Prime, Data General, among others, were installed to distribute computing power within plants and companies with wider area networking. These were still limited to departmental terminals.

This was the era when the central IT departments were in control of the computing and data workflow of a business. Production control, order entry, accounting and management were beholden to the IT department capabilities and schedule. Single mini-computers handled different departments, often without interoperability and without communication between applications and operations. This was a detriment to innovation and expediency as lower management layers and workers within a company often resented the control.

In the mid-1980s, it became possible for an individual with a PC (personal computer) to handle his/her own data analysis using spreadsheets and written reports in a word processor without any dependence on the central IT department. This was a true eye opener to managers and encouraged the beginning of freedom from the central IT department. Productivity and interdepartmental networking increased exponentially.

Before 1972, the first wide area external network between establishments was sponsored and funded by the military. DARPANET linked major scientific labs and universities. It became non-military and began to operate as the “internet” in the 1980’s. This research oriented network became popular once email applications and the first browsers were developed. This system was used by the US scientific community to exchange research ideas, files, and emails. The success of these systems resulted in the single factor that changed the world in 1991. Tim Berners-Lee, an English computer scientist, developed the graphical World Wide Web interface to make browsing simpler and easier to accomplish. Surfing became an instant success with 18 million subscribers, and the growth of the internet started to become something financiers would support with the IPO of Mosaic/Netscape in 1995. The mass adoption of the Netscape web browser enjoyed over 70% market share. The introduction of internet capabilities in Windows95 brought millions of PC users into the fold.

Early adopters of the internet, outside of universities, used a dialup connection at 1200 to 9600 bits per second, over POTS (plain old telephone service). Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as Tool & Die in Boston, were among the first providers of access to the internet. AOL, CompuServe and Yahoo joined the fray, and speeds improved to 14.4Kbps and 19.6Kbps. Costs started to come down and better modems (33.6Kbps or 56Kbps) from local suppliers such as USRobotics and Zoom Telephonics, became common for small businesses. By 1990, ISDN (128-256Kbps) and T1 (1.5Mbps) connections were becoming available but at expensive monthly rates.

The Download Curve
Other common downloads today include images and audio files. The following table highlights the reasons why interpersonal communication, entertainment, and surfing have driven internet usage high, once the bandwidth increased to make downloading a reasonably acceptable idea:

All of this innovation and development resulted in a feverish effort to increase bandwidth to higher data rates in the latter 1990s. It was becoming possible to deliver information, advertising images and even video signals, once speeds reached a megabit per second. These speeds came via the newer DSL technologies using lower cost DSL and cable modems. Businesses expanded their reach (B2B) and internet sales increased dramatically. Networking companies improved their internet hardware capabilities; software companies improved browsers and compression algorithms; and the internet grew more popular with the public, thanks to the graphical Worldwide Web technology and “free” browsers. Companies began to sprout up everywhere.