shares certain characteristics. Different companies develop different advantages, however, in terms of the specific design of their components and other features developed through extensive and costly research and development. Computers today are part of our lives in ways we often do not even notice, not only in the more obvious personal computers we use at home and the larger computers we may use in such places as banks and libraries, but also in computer technology that is found in home appliances such as television sets, coffee makers, microwave ovens, videocassette recorders, and hand calculators, not to mention toys and games. The arrival of the computer age was so rapid that we have not yet managed to cope with all the changes or with many of the consequences.
The period from 1970 to the present is referred to as the fourth generation of computing, the period dominated by the microchip on which can be placed over 15,000 circuit elements. In 1971, Intel Corporation introduced the first microprocessor chip, which contained all the major logic circuitry of a computer on one chip. The 1977 the personal computer was becoming established. Microcomputers began to attract real business in 1979. Creative developments in software design fueled the sale of hardware, and through the 1980s the microcomputer eclipsed the mainframe and mini-computer markets (Dologite, 1992, 375-376).
E-mail found a home first in certain large corporations. Once this aspect of the business was established, it was some time before the big e mail providers, including MCI, Sprint, and AT&T, came to understand that between Fortune 2000 corporations sending e mail over local area networks (LANs) and hackers
trading information on bulletin board services (BBSs), there lay a huge and important market in small and home based businesses. It was for these small businesses that e mail would become a crucial component, providing needed flexibility and acce...