...about: ● The origin, growth, and current structure of the Internet ● How packet-switched networks are combined to form the Internet ● How Internet protocols and Internet addressing work ● The history and use of markup languages on the Web, including SGML, HTML, and XML ● How HTML tags and links work on the World Wide Web ● The differences among internets, intranets, and extranets ● Options for connecting to the Internet, including cost and bandwidth factors ● Internet2 and the Semantic Web INTRODUCTION Many business executives made the statement “the Internet changes everything” during the late 1990s. One of the first people to say those words publicly was John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, in a speech at a computer industry trade show in 1996. For his company, the Internet did indeed change 36865_02 10/7/2005 16:35:28 Page 52 everything. Cisco, founded in 1984, grew rapidly to become one of the largest and most profitable 52 companies in the world by 2000. Cisco designs, manufactures, and sells computer networking devices. In this chapter, you will learn about these devices and how they make up the Internet. Cisco’s earnings grew as telecommunications companies purchased the company’s products to build the infrastructure of the Internet. Other companies also wanted to connect their business operations to the Internet; they became lucrative customers for Cisco, too. In its fiscal year ended July 2000, Cisco...
Words: 24308 - Pages: 98