Internet

Mid-1990s computer world is in midst of radical change

World Wide web creates new capabilities, new businesses, new competitors

Origins of the Internet:

1960s DARPA wants a communication system linked to computers that can provide access for university and DoD scientists to research computers located around the US

  • 1963-1968 concept and development – J.C.R. Licklider
  • Private firms (ATT and IBM) were dismissive and even hostile
  • Late 1960s - ARPA provides funding to universities and consulting firms to develop and build the Internet
  • 1969 Proof of Concept – government funded university effort
  • December 1969 – four universities in California and Utah were connected and the Internet was born
  • Packet-switching
  • 1969-1975 creation of ARPANET and basic protocols (TCP/IP), early software (FTP; e-mail)
  • Academics are early adopters - Bitnet
  • Early 1980s dialup online providers (AOL, CompuServe) create closed content systems for Internet
  • Internet is fragmented and incompatible
  • 1980s NSF provides funding for connecting most colleges and universities
  • Late 1980s and early 1990s Senator Albert Gore, Jr. major advocate and legislative supporter of the Internet
  • Internet use required considerable technical skills
  • 1987 the Domain Name System (DNS) is adopted
  • 1989 - 1991 World Wide Web is developed to create easy to use, GUI-based and linked web pages for the web
  • HTML and HTTP – created by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN
  • 1990 Gopher is created to search on Internet
  • 1994 Mosiac/Netscape is sold to provide a killer app for WWW
  • high graphics content
  • URL (IP address); servers; browser
  • Caching
  • Internet is commercialized with WWW
  • Internet Explorer
  • Yahoo
  • Google and paid search
  • Amazon
  • E-commerce begins to surge as firms create web sites
  • Major expansion in B2B e-commerce
  • Business technology courses at Rollins and other universities
  • Waves of business startups are developed for the Internet
  • Explosion of fiber optic cable on a global scale
  • Explosion of web pages – books are published with lists of web pages
  • 1999 wi fi standards develop
  • 1996-2000 stock market rises into a bubble
  • Bubble bursts Spring 2000
  • Internet speed of 56KBs
  • Broadband expands from 300KBs to 40MBs today (download)
  • Broadband affects the content you can access
  • Napster – peer to peer file sharing 1999-2001
  • Facebook and social networking
    2004 in Zuckerberg’s dorm room
    Venture capital
    IPO – 2012
    Market Cap - $250 billion
  • Compare and contrast the business models for Facebook, Amazon, Google

Winners and Losers in Computing:

Losers:

IBM

Xerox

Yahoo

AOL

Kodak

RIM (Blackberry)

Startups:

Microsoft

Apple

Google

Facebook

Many startups

In a world of rapid and radical technology change, only new firms with great ideas and business models will succeed and survive. Only established forms ready to cannibalize their existing products will succeed and survive.

Firms must constantly reassess strategic assets: IBM and brand versus Intel and Microsoft