TABLE OF CONTENTS The focus of this section is on how the Internet works and how companies use it to streamline operations, sell products, provide customer support, or connect to suppliers. Broadly speaking, electronic commerce refers to use of the Internet to support day-to-day business activities, which demonstrates the fact that the influence of the Internet is not limited to technical people only. Marketing professionals focus on how to use the Internet for selling products and providing customer service. Finance professionals use the Internet to get real-time market updates. Managers must deal with employees working from remote locations using the Internet as the primary means to communicate with colleagues.
The name Internet is derived from the concept of inter-networking, that is, connecting host computers and their networks to form a larger, global network (Jessup and Valacich, 1999). That is essentially what the Internet is: a large worldwide network of networks that use a common protocol to communicate with each other. The interconnected networks include UNIX, VAX, IBM, Novell, Apple and many other network and computer types. The networks that constitute the Internet are each developed and maintained by different organizations, ranging from government agencies and educational institutions to private businesses and large commercial services such as American Online (AOL) and CompuServe. No single person or organization owns or maintains the Internet.
The Internet enables companies, groups, institutions and individuals to share a wide range of data, including text, video, audio, graphics, databases and other media types.
