The Internet, without a doubt, is having a profound effect on how companies go to market. Unheard of until a few years ago by anyone except scientists and technologists, it has already become an important medium of exchange. The numbers speak for themselves. On-line shopping - just one component of Internet commerce - hit $12.4 billion dollars in 1997 and is projected to reach $425 billion by 2002 ^[1]. That's an abstract number, so let's think in terms of specific companies. This year, Cisco Systems is selling $20 million worth of product every day over the Internet ^[2]. Car-buying service AutoByTel has processed 1.5 million online purchase requests in its three years of operation, and now handles over 100,000 customer requests per month ^[3]. Online bookseller Amazon.com, launched in June 1996, has already sold books to over 3.1 million customers, and has an annual sales rate of almost a half billion dollars ^[4]. As far as how many people are on the Internet in total, no one even really knows, and in any event the number increases by thousands on an hourly basis. Figure 9.1 provides as good an estimate as any, from a leading research firm ^[5].

Figure 9.1: World Wide Web users and buyers

There is simply no historical analogy to describe the speed at which the Internet is growing and becoming woven into the fabric of commercial activity. There is also no historical analogy to describe the hype that has accompanied...