E-business timeline

1983 — Personal computers hit the market.

1984 — Leviton takes the first EDI order.

Early 1990s — CD-ROMs amaze the industry with their enormous storage capacities.

1995-1997 — IndustryNet has a short-lived presence as an early online marketplace.

1997 — Grainger launches first online presence.

1997 — Forrester Research Group predicts U.S. business-to-business transactions will grow from $8 billion in 1997 to $327 billion by 2002.

1998 — Forrester Research Group predicts U.S. B2B transactions will grow from $43 billion in 1998 to $1.3 trillion in 2002.

1999 — The Yankee Group, Boston, Mass., predicts that the number of small businesses (more than 85% of CEE News readers qualify as small businesses) that employ e-commerce sites will double from 1 million to 2 million by the year 2002.

Early 2000 — Dot-coms start swarming electrical market.

Late 2000 — The first of the dot-coms start flaming out.