However, there was no guarantee that Company A and Company B had the same transaction capabilities. In 1984, when the ASC X12 standard was established, this guarantee now existed. In late 1992, Marc Andreessen began working on the creation of the Mosaic browser, which allowed point-and-click access to the web. Andreessen and Jim Clark adapted Mosaic into the downloadable Netscape browser. Virtually anyone could now get onto the web with Netscape, where before only computer programmers had the knowledge of how to do this.
May 1998, DSL expanded across California. This technology allowed people who where previously connecting to the Internet at 28.8 kbs per second to now connect at 50 times that speed. SBC Communications offered 200 communities in California this high-speed Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL). In December 1998, people were celebrating the success of many online merchants. Amazon.com was one of them. Amazon.com generated over $1 billion US in annual sales. AOL, generated $1.2 billion in sales in only 10 weeks. The next big thing in e-commerce was Napster. Napster allowed people to download music from the Internet for free. Founder Shawn Fanning announced on August 13, 1999 that the number of people using his website had quintupled in a week. Napster was a defining moment because it was the first time that consumers have dictated how they want to relate to an industry. On January 10, 2000 AOL and Time Warner announced that they would be merging. This merger meant many things to many people. This merger would be bringing together an old economy titan with a newer, online organization. AOL at the time had 24 million customers. Their ability to reposition content from Time Warner with their 24 million customers would allow them to increase their e-commerce engine significantly. In February of 2000, many major players in the e-commerce game were attacked by computer hackers.
