Before the Internet was really the Internet, it was called the ARPAnet. ARPA-Who? Yeah, that sure is a fun-sounding name. Especially considering what the internet is today, encompassing literally every aspect of our lives. ARPAnet is an acronym for Network of Advanced Research Project Agencies. 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 data sharing, but they were not using the old ‘circuit switched’ telephone method of transferring voice and data communications. That method could only send from one to the other in a linear fashion, end to end.

The ARPAnet once established, as rudimentary as it was at the beginning (late 1970s, early 1980s), used packet switching that allowed communications and data to be sent and received to multiple locations. This is how the TCP/IP communication protocols were born. You can probably thank Robert Kahn and Vint Cerf, often called the father of the Internet, for this. What started as an advocacy project quickly expanded to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and academia, enabling real-time information sharing. In 1989 ARPAnet was shut down and replaced by NSFnet.

First commercial use of the Internet

The first public, commercial use of the Internet came in mid-1989, when Compuserve and MCImail added email service for anyone who wanted it. PSInet then installed a business section on the Internet backbone. Then, in the late 1990s, Tim Berners-Lee introduced 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 around the world; 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 you could say Y or N to). for yes or no). At the time, people were upset with the Junk Fax advertising, they didn’t know 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 letters on the “delete” key 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, almost 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, printers across the country were closing, almost as fast as the film processing industry disappeared with the advent of digital cameras.

The main evolutionary changes of 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 business world. 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 that the Internet has brought to business;

  1. Business email has become the preferred method of written communication

  2. Companies, regardless of their size, created websites, competing on a level playing field.

  3. Interactive websites allowed customers and companies to conduct business online

  4. Industry portal Websites with information on all sectors of the economy have sprung up.

  5. Search engine competition has rapidly evolved to meet consumers’ needs for instant information.

  6. Bulletin boards and later blogs brought open and transparent two-way information for business communication.

  7. Social Networks and Business Social Networks began to grow

  8. The whole world went mobile with smartphones – the internet followed – the rest is history

Today, the world’s information is at your fingertips wherever you are and whenever you want it. Soon, SpaceX’s LEO (Low Earth Orbit) satellite network system, Starlink, will bring internet service to 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 here, and deployed. It will be online in 2020. Once again, the Internet does not disappoint: change is the only constant on the Internet. Your company must be constantly exploiting these new technologies.

What comes next? What’s the next big evolution in enterprise computing?

This turns out to be easy to predict, as the industry and the world’s largest corporations are already preparing. Consider whether 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 running 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 every 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.