Before the Internet was really the Internet, it was called the ARPAnet. ARPA-Who? Yes, it sure is a funny sounding name. Especially considering what the Internet is today, which encompasses literally every aspect of our lives. ARPAnet is an acronym for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. In the late 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Department of Defense undertook a mission. They were trying to find a way to simplify communication and share data, but they weren’t using the old “circuit-switched” telephone method of transferring voice and data communications. That method could only send from one to another in a linear fashion, from one end to the other.
The ARPAnet once established, as rudimentary as it was in the beginning (late 70’s, early 80’s), used packet switching allowing communication and data to be sent and received to multiple locations. Thus, the TCP/IP communication protocols were born. You can probably thank Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf, often referred to as the father of the Internet, for that. What began as an advocacy project quickly expanded to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and academia, allowing real-time information sharing. In 1989 ARPAnet was shut down and replaced by NSFnet.
First commercial use of the Internet
The first public and commercial use of the Internet came in mid-1989, when Compuserve and MCImail added e-mail service to anyone who wanted it. PSInet then installed a commercial section on the Internet backbone. Then in the late 1990s, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the Hypertext Transfer Protocols, and that should sound very familiar to everyone; HTTP. Next camera; HTML, UseNet and FTP (File Transfer Protocol). The internet was up and running, and only in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that today, just over 4 billion people are connected online worldwide; soon everyone will be connected and their lives will be affected in some way.
The Internet has forever changed the way we do business
Before the Internet, businesses used fax machines, Federal Express and Zap Mail package delivery, Snail Mail (USPS), and very limited data transfer with Alpha Pagers (very short text messages to which you could say Y or N for yes or no). At the time, people were upset with the Junk Fax hype, not knowing that the future of SPAM was going to take a big bite out of that nonsense, if only to make it 1,000 times worse. Before SPAM blockers, users used the “delete” key letters within a month of buying a new computer.
The Internet accelerated the flow of information and the speed of business to the point that in 1999 Bill Gates wrote a book; Business @ The Speed of Thought. Of course, by the mid-1990s, just about every legitimate business, large and small, had or was building a website. Why not have an online brochure available 24/7 without having to print and mail information to potential customers? Yes, the printing industry suffered, printing shops across the country were closing down, almost as fast as the film development industry disappeared with the advent of digital cameras.
The main evolutionary changes in the commercial use of the Internet
Yes, the Internet has changed everything in our world, but nowhere is the change as dramatic as in the world of business. From 1990 to 2000, in 10 years everything had changed. It was a chaotic time, but a time of significant opportunity. There is always opportunity in change. The faster the change, the more chaos, crisis and, yes, opportunity. Below is a quick list of some of the paradigm shifts the Internet has brought to business;
- Business email has become the preferred method of written communication
- Companies, regardless of their size, created websites, competing on equal terms.
- Interactive websites allowed customers and companies to conduct business online
- Industry portal Web sites emerged with information on all sectors of the economy.
- Search engine competition has rapidly evolved to meet consumers’ needs for instant information.
- Bulletin boards and later blogs brought two-way open and transparent information for business communication.
- Social Networks and Business Social Networks began to grow
- Everyone went mobile with smartphones – followed the internet – the rest is history
Today, the world’s information is at your fingertips wherever and whenever you want. Soon, SpaceX’s LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite network system, Starlink, will bring Internet service anywhere on the planet, and anyone with a mobile device will be able to access the Internet. Well, that changes everything, and here we go again. Are you ready for the next wave of opportunity/chaos, aboard the next satellite rocket launch? It’s already here, and deployed. It will be online in 2020. Once again, the Internet does not disappoint: change is the only constant of the Internet. Your company must be constantly exploiting these new technologies.
What comes next? What is the next big evolution of business computing?
This turns out to be easy to predict, as industry and the world’s largest corporations are already preparing. Consider if the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and AI (Artificial Intelligence), all connected in real time to the cloud, and all that secure data and information ready for anyone, anywhere and on any mobile device.
Imagine managing a factory, supply chain, construction project, hospital, university, financial institution, or multiple retail stores and having the exact relevant information you need instantly. Imagine all those systems integrated, systematized and optimally configured for maximum efficiency, at any job site, location and “need to know” information for each team member in real time.
From a business perspective, the Internet has just become 100 times more useful, but only if you take advantage of these changes and opportunities.
