A guide to navigating the Net.

• Author: Diehl, Fred
• Position: Using the Internet - Includes related article

Is the Internet really the "best thing since sliced bread"? Or is it all hype? Take a look at how three companies use the Internet to compete and how they cope with security headaches.

The Internet. Also known as the information superhighway, it stretches across 100 countries, offering a rapidly growing number of people around the globe access to oceans of information. From a business perspective, access equals opportunity. Indeed, the Internet seems poised to take its place beside the telephone as an indispensable tool in global business communication. But can you really profit from conducting commerce in cyberspace? The answer is "yes."

Once the province of computer scientists, academics, engineers and students, the Internet wasn't always business-friendly. But in the mid-1980s, commercial organizations and the public linked up with the Internet. Every year since 1988, the Internet has doubled in size. The watershed year was 1993, when the development of special software enabled the Internet to offer multimedia.

Today, the Internet has grown beyond an infrastructure capable of supporting boundless volumes of electronic mail. It's become a slick, sharp-edged marketing tool. Last year alone, thousands of companies turned to the Internet as a new way of bringing their goods and services to consumers. Publishers, for instance, can envision delivering their complete product cycle - from an author's first desktop proof to fulfillment of a consumer's request for a copy of the finished book - hot off an Internet-driven press.

The Internet will be used in some fashion as a productivity tool in virtually every industry imaginable. For example, engineers at Johnson Controls - an independent supplier of automobile seating for the American automobile industry - use the Internet to exchange designs and engineering data with automakers.

And in case you have any lingering doubts about the size of the potential consumer market, consider that from September 1994 to September 1995, 6.5 million, or 7 percent, of all American homes accessed the Internet, compared with 3 percent the previous year, a recent study found. An additional eight million homes plan to go online by September 1996.

The growth in the number and types of access providers attests to the value of this market. In addition to small access providers and start-ups, telecommunications monoliths like AT&T and MCI and even cable companies plan to offer Internet access in the near future.

WHO'S TAPPING IN?

In response to this explosive growth on the consumer side, more and more companies are discovering that the Internet is a powerful communications tool that provides access to a wealth of information that once may not have been unearthed easily. Companies can connect their local-area networks, communicate with customers and suppliers and tap into the vast consumer pool and information resources of the Internet.

The usefulness of the Internet depends on your perspective, whether that's a marketing, financial or consumer point of view. The benefits to be had aren't necessarily cost savings, although you can build a case that the Internet is a cost-effective communications alternative. The actual numbers depend on many implementation variables. But for most companies, the advantages, especially marketing opportunities and productivity...