overview
past booms
Australia
snapshot
dotcoms
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landmarks
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landmarks
This page highlights particular incidents during the 'dot-com
decade'.
It covers -
Context
is provided by the more general communications and media
timeline on this site and by
notes such as those on merger & acquisition benchmarks,
'old media' takeover
of internet companies, telecommunication sector privatisations
and takeovers.
1990
World Wide Web described by Tim Berners-Lee
Telecom New Zealand privatised
through sale to Bell Atlantic and Ameritech for NZ$4.25bn
Telmex privatised through US$1.7bn sale to Grupo Carso,
Southwestern Bell and France Télécom
Clear Communications begins competition against Telecom
NZ
Electronic Frontier Foundation founded
Americans With Disabilities Act in US
Mannesmann launches D2 mobile network in Germany
Operation Sundevil in US against hackers
first commercial provider of dial-up net access
first palmtop computers
IBM's revenue reaches US$68.9bn, with 400,000 employees
worldwide
99% of US households have at least one radio
Dun
& Bradstreet pays US$333m for Management Science America
Moravec's Mind Children
US business uses 4 trillion pages of paper
Packer regains control of Nine television network
NZ Telecom sold to Bell Atlantic, Ameritech & Fay
Richwhite
1991
Matsushita buys MCA
AT&T acquires NCR for US$7.3bn
GTE buys Contel for US$6.6bn
SITA establishes Scitor as global data services provider
UK government sells 25.8% of British Telecom
IBM's first revenue decline in 45 years
IBM sells ROLM to Siemens
Line Mode Browser - the first internet browser
Australia as An Information Society report
CNN dominates news coverage worldwide during Gulf War
Denver trial of VOD - over 1,000 titles but no profits
over 4 billion videocassette rentals in the US
75% of US homes reported to own VCRs, 60% have cable tv
US Telephone Consumer Protection Act
Computer Associates buys Pansophic for US$300m
Feist copyright decision
by US Supreme Court
end of NSF's internet 'Acceptable Use' policy
1992
Maastricht Treaty on European Union
US cable television revenue reaches US$22 billion
US has 10 million mobile phone subscribers
China has 11.8m phone subscribers
LDDS merges with Advanced Telecommunications for US$850m
United Telephone renamed Sprint
900 million TV sets in the world; 201 million in the US
45.4% of Italian families have a VCR
first use of the phrase "surfing the net" by Jean Armour
Polly
first SMS to a mobile
phone
Moving Picture Experts Group agree on MPEG Audio Layer
III, aka MP3
at least 50 US cities have competing cable services
Australian Disability Discrimination Act
US Audio Home Recording Act
Gilder's Life After Television
TCI
chair John Malone predicts "500 channel universe"
US National Science Foundation appoints NSI to manage
dot-com, dot-net and dot-org domain names
Internet Society (ISOC)
founded
Deutsche Bundespost Telekom and France Telecom form Eunetcom
Control Data spins off software arm, renames itself Ceridian
1993
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
proposed merger of TCI and Bell Atlantic collapses
DVD invented by Toshiba
est 10 million fax machines deployed in US
V-chip proposed for TV content control
Mosaic - first graphical internet browser
Kodak and Apple produce first
digital still image camera for consumers
Cisco buys Crescendo for US$97m
Fosters buys Cascade
GTE sells Sylvania lighting and materials operations to
Osram
Bay Networks formed through US$2.7bn merger of Synoptics
and WellFleet
LDDS buys Resurgens Communications Group and Metromedia
Communications for US$1.25bn to create fourth-largest
US long distance phone network
Primus Telecommunications founded
Australian MEDLINE network closes
UK government sells 21% of British Telecom for £5bn
France Telecom acquires most Compagnie Generale des Eaux
cable networks
Sprint merges with Centel to become only major US telco
providing long distance, local and wireless services
CANARIE established in Canada
Tucows founded as software download service
New Zealand Privacy Act
IBM posts US$8.1bn loss
Ameritech and Bell Atlantic reduce Telecom New Zealand
stake to a combined 49.6%
BellSouth NZ establishes mobile network in New Zealand
China has 17.8m phone subscribers
1994
LDDS buys IDB Communications Group for US$936m
MCI and BT form US$1bn Concert Communication Services
joint venture
BT takes 20% stake in MCI for US$4.3bn
Monster Board (later Monster.com) founded
Danish government sells 49% of Tele Danmark
MCI takes US$1.3bn stake in wireless service provider
Nextel Communications
Orange mobile network in UK launched
Australian Mobile Telecoms Association (AMTA) established
Elsevier
buys LEXIS-NEXIS
first digital TV service - DirecTV in the US by satellite
Netscape
Stac Electronics awarded US$120m damages for patent infringement
by Microsoft
Village
controls Austereo radio in Australia
Viacom
buys Blockbuster and Paramount
BCE
buys 20% of Mercury Communications
VoiceStream founded
135 million PCs worldwide
US government privatises internet management
first ads on the World Wide Web (ad for Wired magazine
claimed as first)
first demonstration of Java
Cyberspace & the American Dream manifesto
Pizza Hut sells pizzas over the net
US videogame industry establishes Entertainment Software
Rating Board (ESRB)
First Virtual, first cyberbank
Telecom Italia established
Rheingold's The Virtual Community
Birkerts' The Gutenberg Elegies
Guldberg Report on economic value of copyright industries
in Australia
Cordell proposes Byte Tax
Canter & Siegel's How to Make a Fortune on the Information
Superhighway
Goldstein's Copyright's Highway: The Law & Lore of
Copyright from Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox
interactive TV introduced in US
Compagnie des Machines Bull privatised
Adobe buys Aldus for US$525m
China has 27.2m phone subscribers, 5.1 mobile subscribers
RealNetworks founded
1995
est 25 million mobile phone subscribers in US
est 15 million fax machines deployed in US
LDDS buys WilTel (Williams Telecommunications Group) for
US$2.5bn, changes name to WorldCom
first US NTIA Falling Through The Net report
APEC Seoul Declaration for the Asia Pacific Information
Infrastructure
Amazon.com founded
craigslist founded
Virage founded
first wiki site (for Portland
Pattern Repository)
Pearson
buys Grundy
Worldwide
Seagram
buys MCA
Westinghouse
buys CBS,
subsequently changes name to CBS
Singapore Telecom takes 24.5% in AAPT
AAPT acquires major shareholding in Newsnet ITN
AAPT buys 50% of ISP
connect.com.au
Cisco buys Grand Junction for US$348m
Northern Telecom becomes Nortel
US mutual fund assets first exceed deposits in US commercial
banking system
Microsoft's Internet Explorer
browser
Sony demonstrates flat-screen TV set
Iomega markets Zip drive
Mondex introduced
RealAudio lets internet users hear in near real-time
Marty Rimm 'cyberpanic'
Negroponte's Being Digital
Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil
EU Data Protection Directive
AT&T announces split into AT&T communication services,
Lucent Technologies and NCR computing
Sun Microsystems introduces Java programming language
WebCrawler acquired by America Online
global Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property (TRIPS)
Compaq acquires NetWorth and Thomas-Conrad
Disney
buys ABC network
VeriSign founded
Deutsche Bundespost spins off Deutsche Telekom
NSF transfers control of four major internet access points
to Ameritech, Sprint, MFS and PacBell
1996
Nominet established
US Health Insurance Portability & Accountabilility
Act
US Child Pornography Prevention Act
Cisco buys Stratacom for US$4.8bn
Westpac buys Trust Bank of New Zealand
National Library of Australia launches PANDORA project
Novell sells WordPerfect and Quattro Pro to Corel for
US$180m
German government sells 26% of Deutsche Telekom for DM20bn
Sprint, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom joint venture
Global One oup demutualises, with AXA SA of France as
dominant shareholder
Bull's Zenith Data Systems merges with Packard Bell and
NEC's North American pc arm
over 3,800 ISPs in US
19% of Australian households have cordless phones
Telstra begins operation in New Zealand
Belgian government sells 49% of Belgacom
Nynex and Bell Atlantic merge to form Verizon
WorldCom buys UUNet and MFS Communications for US$12bn
Apple buys NeXT for US$425m
TRW sells remaining interest in Experian
1997
Telecommunications Act 1997 deregulates telecoms
in Australia
Danish government sells further 30% of Tele Danmark
American Libraries Association v Pataki case in
US
Compaq acquires Tandem Computer
Cairncross' The Death of Distance
Schement & Curtis' Tendencies & Tensions of the Information
Age
Frankel develops Winamp MP3 tool
Strassmann's The Squandered Computer
Amsterdam Treaty
EU Distance Selling Directive
Sixdegrees.com founded
Microsoft invests US$1bn in Comcast
Microsoft
buys WebTV for US$503m
Ascend Communications buys Cascade for US$3.7bn
GTE buys BBN, unsuccessfully bids for MCI
Primus buys Axicorp and establishes Primus Australia in
competition with Optus and Telstra
SBC and Pacific Telecommunications merge
1998
Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corporation
Microsoft buys Hotmail for US$400m
WorldCom buys MCI for US$40bn and Brooks Fiber Properties
for US$1.2bn
Citigroup formed through US$70bn merger of Travelers Group
and Citicorp
Sprint buys out TCI, Comcast Corporation and Cox Communications
in wireless joint venture Sprint PCS
GTE and Bell Atlantic announce US$53bn merger as Verizon
BT buys MCI's 24.9% interest in Concert
AOL
buys Netscape (for US$4.2bn), CompuServe and ICQ
BMC buys Boole & Babbage for US$900m
ICANN created
Sixdegrees.com acquired by YouthStream for US$125m
Vodafone New Zealand buys BellSouth NZ
Ameritech sells its 24.8% in Telecom NZ
Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom establish Wind Telecomunicazioni
Nortel buys Bay Networks for US$9.1bn
Nortel buys Cambrian Systems
Cisco buys Netspeed
Mannesmann buys tele.ring (Austria)
AMP demutualises, buys Citibank's New Zealand retail banking
operations
Westpac buys Bank of Melbourne
AMP pays $920m for UK fund manager Henderson Investors
(founded 1934)
Tiscali founded in Sardinia
Seagram
buys Polygram
Hewlett-Packard releases first colour Palmtop computer
Panasonic releases first hand-held DVD player
Equant floated on NYSE
digital mobile phone sales overtake analogue phone sales
Uniform Electronic Evidence Act in Canada
Kelly's New Rules For The New Economy
NY Times site defaced by Hacking For Girliez (HFG)
hacktivists
US Digital Millennium Copyright Act
APEC Singapore Declaration for the Asia Pacific Information
Infrastructure
est 100 million fax machines deployed worldwide (20 million
in US)
1999
WC3 releases Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
transfer of business.com for US$7.5m fires domain name
boom
Euro created as EU currency
InfoSeek sold for US$2.5bn
Auto-ID Center established
Fanning founds Napster
AOL buys Frankel's Nullsoft for US$100m
auDA established to manage
dot-au TLD
global telecommunication traffic generated by data transmission
exceeds traffic generated by voice transmission
150 million internet users worldwide (over 50% in US)
over 4,000 ISPs in EU and 6,700 in US
Finland's mobile phones linked to vending machines
36% of Australian households have cordless phones
first WAP mobile phone advertisement in Finland
Compaq acquires Shopping.com
Coles Myer buys Harris Technology
Tiscali founds Nets SA and ATelecom SA in France
GEC sells Marconi Electronics Systems
BCE spins off most of stake in Nortel for C$73bn
BCE absorbs Teleglobe for C$9.6bn
Seven sells MGM/UA stake
John Doerr says " Believe it or not, the Internet
is actually underhyped"
Match.com acquired by Ticketmaster-CitySearch for US$50m
Nortel buys Qtera, Periphonics, Shasta Networks and X-CEL
Communications
GEC buys RELTEC and FORE Systems
Alcatel buys Xylan, Packet Engines, Assured Access and
Internet Device
Australian Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online
Services) Act - aka BSA
- reinforces online content regulation
BT and AT&T form Concert joint venture
AAPT buys remaining 50% of connect.com.au
Telecom New Zealand buys 79% of AAPT
German government sells further stake in Deutsche Telekom
for €11bn
Telstra merges New Zealand arm with Saturn to form TelstraSaturn
Australian Electronic Transactions Act
Varian & Shapiro's Information Rules
Lessig's Code & Other Laws Of Cyberspace
RIAA litigation against Napster
Viacom
buys CBS
Deutsche Telekom buys One2One.com in UK and Siris in France
Mannesmann buys control of Omnitel and Infostrade (Italy)
and Orange (UK)
US$45bn spent on US tv advertising (US$14bn to CBS, ABC
and NBC)
Kinetica replaces Australian Bibliographic Network
Yahoo! added to S&P 500 index
Yahoo buys Geocities for US$5bn
Cisco buys Pirelli Optical Systems for US$2.1bn
ICQ claims 40 million members
last Morse transmission from Australian coast station
2000
'Great Dot-com Crash'
of April 2000
EU Electronic Commerce Directive
Vivendi
swallows Seagram
CanWest
swallows Hollinger's
Canadian newspaper chain
Bell Canada spins off Nortel stake to shareholders
DoCoMo buys 42.3% of AOL Japan for US$100m
'Digital Agenda' Copyright
Act in Australia
Motorola merges with General Instrument Corporation
Marconi buys Bosch Public Networks
Norway's Telenor floated for US$1.7bn
EISA foreshadows $325m bid for Ozemail, then collapses
Vodafone takes control of Mannesmann, sells engineering
interests
Spanish telco Telefonica pays £3.5bn for entertainment
group Endemol
Australian Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act
extends privacy regime
to parts of non-government sector
Sanger launches Wikipedia
Nortel buys Xros, Dimension Enterprises, Alteon WebSystems,
CoreTek and Photonic Technologies
Equant merges with Global One under control of France
Telecom
France Telecom buys Orange mobile network in UK
France Telecom forms Radianz joint venture with Reuters
Tiscali buys Datacomm and Nikomm (Germany), CD-Telekomunikace
(Czech), LinkLine and Interweb(Belgium), WorldOnline (Netherlands)
ScanSoft buys Omnipage parent Caere
UK government gains US$35bn from auction of five 3G wireless
licenses
WC3 releases Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines
German government gains €50.2bn from six 3G wireless
licences
Telecom NZ moves to 100% of AAPT
VoiceStream buys Aerial Communications for US$5.6bn and
Omnipoint for US$7.2bn
Sprint sells stake in GlobalOne for US$1.4bn
US and EU regulators block WorldCom US$115bn merger with
Sprint
Alcatel buys Newbridge, Genesys and Innovative Fibers
BCE buys CTV for C$2bn
BCE and Thomson form Bell Globemedia
26m mobile phone subscribers in China
Frankel releases Gnutella
2001
EU Directive on Copyright & Related Rights In The Information
Society
Elsevier
swallows Harcourt General
merger of Chase Manhattan and J P Morgan
WorldCom merges with Intermedia Communications
Andersen Consulting becomes Accenture
over 20 million subscribers on DoCoMo's i-mode
network
Hewlett-Packard buys Compaq for US$2bn
C&W America buys Exodus Communications for US$800m
Commonwealth Interactive Gambling
Act 2001 in Australia
Deutsche Telekom buys VoiceStream and PowerTel
Tiscali buys Planet Interkom and SurfEu (Germany), Springboard
(UK) and 70% of Excite Italia
Corbis buys Second Line Search
Bill Gates listed as world's richest man
AOL subscribers reach 29 million worldwide
Napster ordered by 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block
copyrighted music
Polaroid goes into Chapter 11
Apple releases iPod
TelstraSaturn buys Clear to form TelstraClear New Zealand
2002
EU Directive on Privacy & Electronic Communications
Yahoo buys HotJobs job board for US$436m
Kirch
goes into receivership
Sarbanes-Oxley Act in US
Vivendi
starts unbundling
WorldCom seeks for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection, listing
US$107bn assets and US$41bn debt
IBM buys PwC Consulting for US$3.5bn
IBM buys Rational Software for US$2.1bn
WC3 releases User Agent Accessibility Guidelines
Yahoo! buys Inktomi
Sears buys Lands End for US$1.9bn
54% of Australian households have cordless phones?
Italian government sells stake in Telecom Italia
2003
News Corp buys Hughes Electronics (DirectTV)
CIPA declared constitutional in US
Lawrence v Texas decision by US Supreme Court
Softbank
sells Aozora Bank stake
US 'Truth In Domains' Act ('PROTECT Act')
'AOL' removed from name of AOL Time Warner
LookSmart dropped by MSN
Google buys Blogger
VeriSign SiteFinder controversy
Granada merges with Carlton
EMC buys Legato for US$1.3bn
VeriSign sells 85% of registrar arm to Pivotal Private
Equity for US$100m
Yahoo! buys Overture
Telstra buys IP1 Australia
Penthouse goes bust
Enron goes into Chapter 11
BT reenters mobile phone market in UK
22% of Russian population has mobile phone subscription
Spam Act 2003 in Australia
number of internet subscribers in Australia reaches over
5.2m
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 in US
EMC buys Documentum for US$1.7bn
152m personal computers sold across globe
Red Hat buys Sistina Software
World Summit on the Information Society
EMC buys VMware for US$635m
UK government pledges to have all citizens online by 2008
FedEx buys Kinko's for US$2.4bn
32m cars in UK, 29m in France, 47m in Germany, 38m in
Italy, 25m in Spain, 137m in US, 10m in Australia
Bank of America buys FleetBoston Financial for US$48bn
US federal Fair & Accurate Credit Transactions
Act 2003
2004
Conrad Black exits from Hollinger
Australia-US Free Trade Agreement
Comcast bids for Disney
Cingular buys AT&T Wireless
Enron sells CrossCountry Energy to Southern Union and
GE for U$2.4bn
controversy over 2003 proposals by Telstra
to buy Fairfax or Nine Network and Telstra's anti-competitive
conduct in broadband market
LexisNexis acquires Seisint for US$775m
Hostway Corporation acquires responsibility for operation
of dot-pro TLD from Register.com
NOIE replaced by Australian Government Information Management
Office (AGIMO) and Office
of Information Economy
CNET Networks buys EDventure Holdings
Alcatel sells mobile phone operations to China's TCL Communication
Microsoft pays Sun over US$1.95bn to settle lawsuits and
patent disputes
Telstra pays $636m for Trading Post classified ads publications
Kabel Deutschland GmbH buys Ish, KabelBW and iesy for
US$3.3bn
AOL pays US$435m for Advertising.com
TARBS goes into receivership
UK Office of the e-Envoy replaced by Cabinet Office e-government
unit
Intelsat agrees to US$5bn takeover
DMGT sells Australian regional network
Telstra buys Damovo
collapse of Comindico
US Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act 2004
in Australia extends copyright protection to life plus
70 years model
Deutsche Telekom buys public stake in T-Online internet
subsidiary (spun off in 2000)
IBM sells personal computer division to Lenovo
global revenue from mobile phones greater than from fixed-line
phones
Sprint and Nextel in US announce US$72bn merger
Oracle acquires PeopleSoft for US$10.3bn
Symantec buys Veritas in US$13.5bn deal
online advertising in UK (£653.3m) overtakes commercial
radio advertising (£637.4m)
Washington Post group buys Microsoft's Slate
2005
Corbis
buys Zefa image licensing group for US$96m
AT&T agrees to US$16bn takeover by SBC Communications
Verizon buys MCI for US$6.7bn
New
York Times buys About.com from Primedia for US$410m
IBM pays US$1.1bn for Ascential
IAC/InterActiveCorp buys Ask Jeeves for US$1.9bn
Yahoo! buys Flickr.com
Adobe buys Macromedia for US$3.4bn
first Australian court action under Spam
Act 2003
US Supreme Court rules that distributors of file-swapping
software can be held liable for copyright infringement
Bank of America pays US$35bn for MBNA and US$3bn for 9%
of Bank of China
US government indicates intention to retain control of
the Root
Australian Federal Court finds site and ISP guilty of
copyright infringement through links to sites that had
infringing sound recordings
Barclays pays US$4.2bn for 54% of South African bank Absa
France Télécom pays €6.4bn for 80%
of Spanish mobile operator Amena
CAFTA
Universal Music Australia v Sharman decision
by Federal Court
eBay agrees to pay US$2.6bn for Skype
Oracle buys Siebel
global number of mobile phone customers passes 2 billion
BSkyB pays £211m for UK broadband ISP Easynet
Ericsson buys most of Marconi's manufacturing businesses
2006
Disney buys Pixar for US$7.4bn
AT&T makes US$67bn bid for BellSouth
NBC Universal agrees to buy iVillage for around US$600m
John Fairfax pays $625m for Trade Me
BT pays £30m for online retailer Dabs.com
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