It's All About Convergence
Not too long ago I realized that of all my children, only my two oldest had memories of the bad old “dial-up” days. They were born in the mid to late 90s. Technology wise, most internet users subscribed to dial-up plans offered by the local telcos as well as local Internet Service Providers. In my town, we had two or three ISPs run out of basements. In those days, cellphones were just beginning to catch-on. But still, most cellphone users were businesspeople. 3G cell protocol was launched in Japan during that period. Windows 98, and Windows NT reigned supreme on most desktops; Novel version 3.2 and Digital Electronics DEC systems still ran most business networks. Lotus Notes was still the preference for business email systems. For consumers, AOL, Yahoo, and Excite dominated the Internet, and Ask Jeeves was the favorite search engine for most people looking for answers to problems.