[8804] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Using the Internet for/by Business - my $.03
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Daniel P Dern)
Sun Dec 5 13:43:16 1993
Date: Sun, 5 Dec 1993 13:42:29 -0500
From: ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern)
To: com-priv@psi.com
The subject of business use of the Internet is hardly new. It was a
major factor in the establishment of the "commercial Internet providers"
(a.k.a. "Public Data Internets" [PDIs - I believe I was the one to coin
this term, it's analogous to Public Data Networks] like PSI's PSInet and
Uunet's Alternet, and of the Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX). Even
then, it was clear that business uses for IP connectivity and for
"commerciall zoned" parts of the Internet included (as pasted from my
original mss on my disk):
"The CIX will let customers of these networks access the other networks
directly, for applications such as:
o Cooperative program development
o Customer technical support
o Participation/awareness of technical standards
o Access to online news and information
o Professional and staff development through immediate
communications with leaders in the field through email,
news groups, and transferring late-breaking information and
technology
o Inter-office communications and product briefings
o Working with vendors, suppliers and customers
electronically
o E-mail and file transfer for price lists, product
information, bug fixes, code patches, etc.
o LAN-class file-serving under NFS
o Document conferencing
o Remote login for supercomputer access
o New services like 'pay for view' databases
o Remotely-handled system administration and maintenance,
software porting, etc.
o File transfer using TCP/IP FTP
o electronic mail
o Opening concurrent windows to hosts in multiple offices."
To give credit where due, the above list came largely from discussions
with John Eldredge, Director of Sales and Marketing at PSI. One could
have gotten a similar list from Rick Adams (Uunet), Barry Shein (Software
Tool & Die/The World), John Curran (NEARnet). FYI, this was before the
advent of such creatures as archie, Gopher or WAIS, and back when there
really was a "physical" NSFnet backbone, which provided the only long-
haul transit among the U.S. 'regionals and midlevels' until direct
interconnections and the CIX came along. (How things have
changed...somewhat.)
(Feel free to check out the articles I wrote for Business Communications
Review, Datamation, Federal Computer Week, and Interop's ConneXions
newsletter back in 1991 on these topics.)
Since then, there's been some change -- such as new tools and more
providers, and a generalization of "business users of the Internet" from
just folks in the computer and network business and/or the Internet
community to anyone with information they want to make available to the
tens of millions of people for whom on-line communication has become as
natural as the phone, fax, or overnight courier.
Let me share the following excerpts from my own book (_The Internet Guide
for New Users_, McGraw-Hill 1993). A condensed version of Chapter 13 was
printed in a recent issue of LAN Times.
PLEASE NOTE: These excerpts are printed here with my permission as author
and copyright owner; you may forward this message only in its entirety,
including the copyright notice, and you may NOT quote more than a "fair
use" amount of up to four paragraphs in any electronic or print
publication without contacting me for my permission first. For more
information, gopher to the appropriate directory on the Electronic
Newsstand (enews.com), or contact me. Thank you.
Daniel P. Dern (ddern@world.std.com)
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FROM:
THE INTERNET GUIDE FOR NEW USERS, Daniel P. Dern (McGraw-Hill, Oct. 1993);
608 pages. Forward by Cheryl Currid; illustrated by Hannah M.G. Shapero.
Includes coupons for Internet accounts, services and products.
Paperback $27.95 (ISBN 0-07-016511-4) Hardcover $40.00 (ISBN 0-07-016510-6)
(c) Copyright 1993 Daniel P. Dern
>From Chapter 14: Commercial and Other Information Services on the
Internet: Databases, Libraries and Other Info-mongers
For many companies, the most immediate motivator for joining and making
use of the Internet is the continually-growing number of information
services available, on a pay-for-use or other basis. Cost savings in
terms of access costs to traditional commercial services can strongly
justify the monthly costs of an Internet connection; other Internet
services "follow along for free."
Services such as e-mail, file-transfer, Usenet news, and archives access
may be valuable--but these are often harder to explain or justify to the
beancounters in the decision loop.
Access to on-line databases like DIALOG and NEXIS/LEXIS, on the other
hand, is something they are familiar with and used to spending money on;
saying you've found a better, less-expensive way to get to them is easy
"business case" to make, and the other aspects of Internet service can
follow as a side-effect.
For example:
o Established big database and full-text providers like DIALOG, Dow
Jones and Mead Data are plugging their systems into the Internet.
o Library services like the On-Line Computer Library Center (OCLC) and
Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) have been 'on the net'
for years; now many are adding full-text retrieval to their catalog
searching, and major library institutions like the Columbia Law Library
and U.S. Library of Congress have started to become Internet-accessible.
o Daily-generated information such as UPI (from ClariNet Communications)
and Reuters (from MSEN Inc.) news feeds, stock quotes and on-line
airline guides (from DELPHI) and the U.S. government's Federal Register
and Commerce Business Daily (from Counterpoint Publishing), are
available via the Internet. Many, notably those from ClariNet, MSEN and
Counterpoint, can be used via popular, familiar Internet tools such as
Gopher, WAIS and Usenet Newsreaders. (Some information services may be
only available to subscribers in the U.S.)
o Book publisher catalogues, journal tables of contents, press releases,
newsletters and other information is available for browsing.
o Reference books, journals, fiction, and multi-media works are becoming
available for searching, browsing and downloading (OnLine BookStore).
Trend-wise, this is a big--although not surprising--additional direction
for the Internet. "The Internet has historically been populated by
programs and services that were largely 'homebrewed' and did not charge
for their access or use, such as anonymous FTP archive sites, Internet
Relay Chat (IRC), and Gopher," notes John Quarterman, author of best-
selling "The Matrix," editor of the Matrix News newsletter, and
Secretary of Matrix Information & Directory Services (Austin, Texas).
"Now, these are being joined by commercially developed, pay-for-use
services."
The concept itself is not new. Remote login to most facilities has
always required users have an account; many services, including the
Supercomputer Centers, have sold accounts, along with or instead of
availability based on work requirements (e.g., research projects, being
associated with an appropriate government effort, etc.). What is new is
the 'coming on board' as an additional or alternative way to access pay-
for-use services.
Also, many of these info-purveyers may not otherwise be Internet users.
I.e., they're plugging in so YOU can access what they sell, not so they
can also access other services or exchange e-mail with you and me.
...
By early 1993, most of the leading business-oriented on-line information
and database services had connected to the Internet, allowing users to
access their accounts via remote-login (telnet) as an alternative to
other telephone or network methods.
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>From Chapter 13: Communities of Interest: A Look at Who's Using the
Internet
Business Solutions via the Internet:
Thousands of businesses also use the Internet in one way or another.
Almost every major computer, network company is, you can bet. The same
goes for every company in the aerospace industry. *
Footnote: Many of these companies and agencies connect for e-mail,
but have "firewall" gateways or other preventatives to keep out
unwanted, unauthorized users.
And thousands more businesses large and small are coming "hopping on the
Internet" as an essential business tool, for activities such as:
o e-mail with suppliers and customers
o access to on-line database services such as Dialog and Dow Jones, and
to information such as the Business Wire and Federal Register (See
Chapter 13)
o distributing sales information and software updates--and making them
available for users to retrieve
o collaborative program and product development
o remote network and system management, and software installation
o Connecting remote offices for file access.
Here's some examples from some Internet users:
Midnight Networks (Waltham, MA), a small startup in doing smart tools
for TCP/IP network administrators, considers its 10Mbit Internet
connection "vital to our strategy and operations," according to Peter
Schmidt, President of the company. "For example, to do alpha-testing of
our first product, we used anonymous-ftp to distribute copies to six
sites in the U.S. and Canada, taking feedback via e0mail. As another big
example: we routinely use archie to locate public-domain software tools
that would represent as much as a week's worth of development each.
The savings we realize from finding and getting even one such program
more than pays for the cost of our Internet connection for the month!
And we do that sort of thing all the time."
Andrew Karp, Program Manager for the Quality of Service Evaluation
System at Pacific Gas & Electric Company (San Francisco, CA), says:
"I participate in the Statistics and SAS Users bulletin boards
extensively. Membership on both lists gives me instant access to
thousands of other statisticans and/or users of the SAS software product
around the world, and there is a phenomenal amount of sharing of ideas
among list participants. It's like having immediate access to a wide
array of programming and methodological experts without having to leave
my office in San Francisco.
"For example, I needed some input about a particular type of measurement
scaling system to present at a meeting here at Pacific Gas & Electric
Company a few months ago. I posted my question to the STAT-L board, and
within two days had a dozen responses from around the world. Needless
to say, my co-workers were very impressed with the quality and diversity
of viewpoints I was able to share with them on this topic."
For Michael Stein Associates (Washington, D.C.) who develop custom LAN
applications, the Internet provides an easy, affordable way to exchange
program files with the company's one-person "field office" in Germany.
"I'm a big CompuServe fan for a lot of my US-oriented needs, but
Internet service seemed better for this," says Stein.
Rohm and Haas Company, a multi-national specialty chemicals company
headquartered in Philadephia, PA, first connected to the Internet in
1988. At the time, their use consisted mostly of a few people sending
occasional e-mail and connecting to the Minnesota Supercomputer Center
to run molecular modeling codes. Today, according to Scientific
Programmer/Analyst Thomas J. Cozzolino, R&H is also using archie, Gopher
(including local VERONICA searches), WAIS, and WorldWideWeb with the
XMosaic client, for internal information as well as to access archives
and databases on the Internet.
"Nearly all of the internal customers who have seen these Internet
Discovery Tools have been interested in learning more," reports
Cozzolino. "Everyone is intrigued by the idea of WAN-based information
services that provide cost-effective and reliable access to internal and
external information.
Adam Gaffin, a reporter at the Middlesex News (Framingham, Mass.)
[ now at Network World, as of Dec 1993 -- DPD ]
is one of a growing number of reporters who use the Internet for stories
or sources. "It lets reporters at small newspapers cover things they
could never do otherwise,'' he said. "Through the Internet, we've been
able to provide first-person accounts of everything from the Gulf War to
the San Francisco earthquake. It's also a great place to ask the sort of
oddball questions reporters sometimes have to answer, such as whether
Passover wine was kosher during Prohibition -- it was.''
The Internet as Marketplace and "Delivery Tool":
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of businesses are springing up based largely
on use of the Internet. These range from organizations like Dialog and
MEAD Data using the Internet to provide an alternative access method, to
electronic information publishers/deliverers like American Cybercast,
ClariNet, and Counterpoint using the Internet to provide sophisticated
new delivery and access to on-line information. (See PART III: Internet
Navigators and also Chapter 13: Communities of Interest: A Look at Who's
Using the Internet.)
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