[ih] Installed base momentum (was Re: Design choices in SMTP)

[Brian E Carpenter]

> The Web emergence in the mid 90s was possibly more a result of TCP's 
> success in enabling universal connectivity rather than a cause of TCP's 
> success.

Both. It was a perfect example of a virtuous circle. Berners-Lee and
Cailliau chose Telnet/TCP/IP because it was there, on *all* target
systems of interest in the high-energy physics community, and then
Internet users chose WWW because it was everywhere after its release
to the public domain.

Regards
    Brian

On 14-Feb-23 13:46, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> IMHO by the early 90s, TCP had already won the competition, and
> organizations everywhere were working on transitioning to the Internet,
> or perhaps more commonly their own TCP-based corporate intranet, perhaps
> as a multiprotocol internet for a while.   Other networking technologies
> still existed in the installed base, but TCP was getting all of the
> attention.
> 
> The Web emergence in the mid 90s was possibly more a result of TCP's
> success in enabling universal connectivity rather than a cause of TCP's
> success.  Once it became obvious that TCP had "won", a company or
> technology vendor had to adapt to it, rather quickly, or die.
> 
> There were earlier technologies that provided collaborative services
> similar to those of the Web.   Lotus Notes is one I remember. Perhaps
> also services like Compuserve or LexisNexis.  IIRC, Notes was based on
> dial-up connections, not TCP.  IBM bought Lotus.   I don't know if Notes
> became part of SNA.   But they're both pretty much gone while the Web,
> based on TCP, explodes in size and reach. LexisNexis is still there,
> living on the Web.
> 
> Jack
> 
> 
> On 2/13/23 13:03, Steven Ehrbar wrote:
>> On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 12:40 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history
>> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> They all competed in the same market conditions.  TCP
>>> didn't just become one of the "top three" in the competitive space.   It
>>> became pretty much the ony one left standing.  Why did TCP/IP win?
>> Because TCP/IP _didn't_ compete in the same market conditions. With
>> the World Wide Web/Mosaic/Netscape in the mid-90s, TCP/IP went out and
>> took over a completely different market than institutional networks,
>> the market for home computers users accessing public services. And
>> then all the personal computers in corporate networks had to be TCP/IP
>> enabled to access the public services being built for home users.
>> After which, the choice for corporations was no longer between using
>> TCP/IP or some other protocol in any given department; it was whether
>> they'd use TCP/IP or _both_ TCP/IP and some other protocol in any
>> given department. And while installed base meant a lot of companies
>> did the "both" for a while, the benefits of transitioning to just one
>> were obvious.
>