The document provides a historical overview of e-business and discusses early models before the rise of the World Wide Web. It describes how expectations and investments in internet-based businesses ballooned in the late 1990s, fueling a dot-com bubble. While many new companies failed, the boom prompted more analysis of emerging e-business models and the factors influencing their success or failure, such as mobilizing complementary assets and establishing a dominant design paradigm.

1. Higher School of Economics , Moscow 2011 www.hse.ru Ian Miles Research Laboratory for the Economics of Innovation, HSE (and Manchester Institute of Innovation Research) November 2011 e - Business and e - Business Models – Part 1 [ « Business and business models in the Internet »]

7. Now we have many “telematics” services (with many Business Models) Some are runaway successes: MOST ARE NOT

8. Three Types of Telematic Service INFORMATION TRANSACTION COMMUNICATION Online Databases News, Weather, Timetables “Home and office” banking Shopping, ticketing Electronic mail Bulletin boards, chatlines Before web, browsers. Some were stand-alone, dial-up; some were hosted on a common platform (we discuss videotex later)

9. Competing with established – and new - services INFORMATION TRANSACTION COMMUNICATION Faster publications CD-ROM, teletext, etc. Telephone banking Telesales (call centres) Fax Pagers There were huge anticipations of take-off; But in many cases this was slow, limited to niches Often other solutions prevailed; many new entrants went bust.

17. Unless you can mobilise powerful stakeholders Minitel Design Minitel / Teletel: French videotex service. The rare success. Terminal provided free. Design features: Minitel terminal meant TV/phone not tied up. Payment hourly reduced anxiety over charges. Use prompted by withdrawal of phone book Hit critical mass – tens of millions of users by ‘90s (many purchases of superior terminals) Much scope in system to innovate and plug in private services; messagerie and minitel rose very popular, a cultural phenomenon Established a dominant design that may have led to slow French adoption of Web!

20. Higher School of Economics, June 2011 1995 to 2000, accelerating in the latter period; Rapid growth of hopes and hypes about internet businesses Major levels of investment Highly speculative, based on hopes of technology-based future returns from new business models  People began talking about New Business Models – prompting upsurge of debate about Business Models The “Dot Com Bubble” brought business model thinking to the fore

21. Explosion of analysis Source: Harzing’s Publish or Perish ; analysis of articles and books (Google Scholar, cleaned) with “Business Model” in title 6 June 2011 [Google results – May 2000 – 107k hits; June 2011 - 25.3m hits] 5 8 15 396 208 590 490 466 697 409 Period 5 5 5 5 2 2 2 2 2 1.5 1980-84 1985-90 1990-94 1995-99 2000; -02 -04 -06 -08 -10 -1 -3 -5 -7 -9 -11part

24. The view from Doonesbury Gary Trudeau © Other people saw the humour, too

26. Inevitable crash (Almost) everyone hurt – including suppliers (e.g. network and server firms), public bodies (e.g. cities building internet hubs), and small investors. Already there were many warning voices, and several “false stops”

27. One interpretation

28. A more general lesson? Gartner’s Trajectory of Hype Technology Trigger Peak of Inflated .. Expectations Trough of Disillusionment Source: Gartner Group , who regularly update with various technologies: it may not be scientific, but it captures a familiar dynamic Plateau of Productivity Slope of Enlightenment Time Hopes

34. 20, Myasnitskaya str., Moscow, Russia, 101000 Tel.: +7 (495) 621-2873 , Fax: +7 (495) 625-0367 www.hse.ru Higher School of Economics, June 2011