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2. INTRODUCTIONContext for theE-Commerce Project2.1 Leading economic commentators,such as Alvin Toffler, 1 have predicted a third‘revolution’ – the ‘information’ revolution –carrying society forward in another majorleap equivalent to the earlier agrarian andindustrial advances. Economic historians maywell look back on the final five years of thiscentury as the defining period in thatrevolution. The explosive growth of thecommercial Internet, beyond its initial base inthe military and academic communities, hasbeen unprecedented (see figure 2.1 for USexperience). Europe, Japan and the otherdeveloped economies are on a similar growthcurve of adoption, some one to three yearsbehind the USA. In the US and Canada102 million people now have access to theInternet and world-wide usage exceeds179 million 2 (see figure 2.2).UNPRECEDENTED PACE OF CHANGE IN USINTERNET USEINTERNET ACCESS BY REGION – JULY 1999US andCanada100% = 179 million usersMiddle East and Africa57%3%1%15%24%Latin AmericaAsia PacificEuropeSource: NUA Figure 2.22.2 The following two quotations illustratethe scope of the unpredictable change nowunleashed:40353025201510Years to achieve 50 million users“The newest innovations, which we labelinformation technologies, have begun to alterthe manner in which we do business and createvalue, often in ways not readily foreseable evenfive years ago”Alan Greenspan – Chairman US Federal ReserveBoard 6 May 1999“The Internet changes everything”50BroadcastradioBroadcastTVPersonalComputers CommercialInternetSource: US Dept. of Commerce Figure 2.11The Third Wave – written by Alvin Toffler and published by Bantam Books2NUA Survey July 1999 (see http://www.nua.ie /surveys)Bill GatesBusiness @ the Speed of Thought – 1999E-commerce@its.best.uk7