Blue Bell, Pennsylvania-based Unisys Corp. provides systems integration, network management, technology support, outsourcing, and consulting services to clients in communications, financial services, publishing and transportation industries, as well as to government agencies. Major competitors include IBM Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp. In the late 1990s, the firm shifted its focus away from com…
With sales of nearly $30 billion, profits of almost $3 billion, and roughly 360,000 employees, United Parcel Service (UPS) is the largest package shipper in the world. Since the early 1990s, the firm has spent roughly $1 billion per year on information technology. Considered the most technologically savvy of the world's largest shipping firms, UPS uses things like UPSnet, with more than 500…
UNIX is a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system (programs responsible for running computers). It plays an important role in e-commerce because millions of Web servers (computers used to host Web sites) run on UNIX, along with many workstation computers. In InformationWeek, IBM indicated that UNIX was a cornerstone of e-businesses because "most major Internet developments have been driv…
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), also known as Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) or occasionally as Universal Resource Locators, are strings of letters, numbers, and special characters that constitute the addresses of documents, files, electronic mailboxes, images, and other resources in cyberspace. One of the hallmarks of Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web was the ability…
For a long time, the ease with which humans and computers interacted was not a primary area of focus. The earliest computers relied on interfaces that by modern standards were very primitive and cumbersome. As computing became a part of life for more than just a handful of scientists, academics, and businesspeople, it became necessary to devise user interfaces that were not terribly difficult to u…
Whether a company sells products or services to consumers, other businesses, or both, there are many different ways to approach the marketplace and make a profit. Business models are used to describe how companies go about this process. They spell out the main ways in which companies make profits by identifying a company's role during commerce and describing how products, information, and o…
UUNET, a subsidiary of telecommunications giant WorldCom, is a leading provider of Internet services and products primarily to business customers worldwide. It offers Internet access, Web hosting, remote access, and other services throughout the world to more than 70,000 businesses. The company also owns and operates a global network in thousands of cities. UUNET's customers can choose from…
In order for customers to visit Web sites, make initial online purchases, and then develop into return customers, companies must provide them with good reasons for doing so. In general, value creation is the process companies use to make their Web sites destinations of choice, distinguished from and with advantages over other Web sites or retail channels. A company's ability to create value…
Virtual communities organize and bring together individuals, groups, and businesses in cyberspace around common interests or purposes. From identity-and interest-based communities to industry-based business-to-business exchanges, virtual communities proliferated in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Each community has its own character, rules, culture, interface, and features, depending on the purpos…
Viruses are computer programs, usually malicious but occasionally unintentional, that spread through networks replicating themselves on shared programs and corrupting the computers in their path. While viruses have existed for years, they have taken on a new prominence and danger in the Internet Age, when they can spread much faster and compromise more—and more important—systems. A v…
Internet technology changed the world in many ways. By connecting millions of people and businesses together, it increased the pace at which information travels, and therefore the pace of people's lives. No longer was it necessary to wait for news about emerging industry trends or details about the performance or conditions surrounding a particular company. As the Internet became more perva…
Vortals, or vertical portals, funciton like portals in that they serve as Internet starting points. Unlike portals, which have a broad, general appeal, vortals serve narrow, well-defined interests. A vortal provides Internet users with a route to content that is relevant to their specific interest. Through a careful selection of content and links to other Web sites, vortals focus in on a particula…
Todd Wagner, along with partner Mark Cuban, founded Broadcast.com in 1995. Due in large part to Wagner's business experience, the Internet start-up grew to become a leading Internet broadcasting firm in just a few short years. Wagner left the company in 2000, shortly after Yahoo!'s $5.7 billion purchase of Broadcast.com. The following year, Wagner and Cuban—both anxious to tea…
Theodore (Ted) Waitt is the founder and CEO and Gateway, Inc., a direct seller of made-to-order personal computers (PCs). He is credited for parlaying a home-based business into a $10 billion mail-order PC powerhouse in just 15 years. Under Waitt's direction, Gateway was the first direct PC seller to offer its machines on the Internet and the first to offer its own Internet services along w…
Jay Walker is the founder of Priceline.com, the World Wide Web site that allows customers to specify the price they are willing to pay for airline tickets, hotel rooms, and automobile rentals. When Price-line's performance began to falter in 2000 and 2001, as the dot.com industry as a whole fell apart, Walker resigned as vice chairman of Priceline.com and increased his efforts at Walker Dig…
The Walt Disney Co.'s most successful Internet role was as a content provider. Since the mid-1990s the company has operated Web sites for kids and parents, including Family.com and the subscription-based Blast online. It developed other Web properties, including ESPN.com, ABC.com, ABCNews.com, and other Disney sites. In 1998 the company embarked on a strategy to create an Internet portal to…
Web scripting languages are a form of high-level programming language. High-level programming languages are much closer to human language than machine language, through which computer hardware accepts commands. High-level programming languages, like C and C++, rely on programs called compilers or interpreters so they can be converted to machine language (mainly zeroes and ones). Programs written i…
Through the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Internet transformed the way in which companies, organizations, and individuals interact with the world. Over that period, a new medium, the World Wide Web, gave birth to what became one of the most prominent means by which entities convey their personality, character, and features: the Web site. Increasingly, the Web site has emerged as a primary and ce…
As many businesses found, to their dismay, in the early days of the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s, the design of a Web site can make or break a firm's attempts to establish a Web presence. Poor aesthetic design, weak technological backbones, inconsistent data integration, and illogical site organization and structure can discourage users and potential clients, causing them to give up on a…
The work to be done on a Web site usually doesn't end simply because the site goes live. Most sites of any complexity require ongoing maintenance; technological changes compel operators of Web sites to upgrade their pages in order to look current, offer new features, and maintain compatibility with new software and standards. By one estimate, major sites have tended to relaunch in some fash…
No matter how sophisticated and well planned a Web site's design, it was ultimately the user's experience that counted most, particularly in e-commerce. If customers couldn't use a site's offerings, they couldn't make a purchase. Usability refers to the overall quality of a user's Web site experience. Did the page load quickly? Was she able to find everyth…
Webcrawler was the Internet's first search engine that performed keyword searches in both the names and texts of pages on the World Wide Web. It won quick popularity and loyalty among surfers looking for information. Despite the fact that competitors like Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, HotBot, Northern Light, and Infoseek have long overtaken Webcrawler in popularity and power, its name remains s…
The Internet, particularly via e-commerce, takes one's personal information to unprecedented levels of common knowledge. On the one hand, companies argue that access to greater levels of information makes them more efficient and more able to meet the needs of their customers. On the other hand, privacy advocates caution about the Internet's ability to excessively invade personal pri…
Whether an Internet user is stumped for the meaning of a termor hung up on how many nibbles make up a bit, chances are online encyclopedia Webopedia has answers. One of several sites branded under the Internet.com technology portal and run by INT Media Group, Inc., Webopedia has never been a high-flying dot-com, but simply a stable reference source geared toward a general audience. Its award-winni…
Webvan Group was an online grocery delivery service that operated between mid-1999 and mid-2001, when it ceased operations, shut down its World Wide Web site, and filed bankruptcy. During its short history, Webvan spent roughly $1.2 billion in capital, a fact which earned it the distinction of being one of the most costly failed Internet startups to date. Most analysts agree that the young busines…