The year is 2005 and I've been asked to write an ecommerce retrospective. It seems like a daft idea because these days no-one ever bothers putting the 'e' in front of business or commerce. Every transaction that doesn't actually get conducted electronically is supported by a computer process of one kind or another.

I paid with card-cash for an ice-cream the other day. The vendor said his van didn't have an online verification system and that all transactions were cleared on an overnight batch run - very quaint! Even so, the vehicle was fitted with a stock control system that automatically re-orders product lines so the vendor can restock as soon as he gets back to the depot. The system is self-calibrating, which means it can check which lines are selling well and which are selling less well, before feeding the information back not just to the depot but also to the manufacturer, who can adjust production levels accordingly.

This stuff is now so commonplace, it's easy to forget how quickly it crept up on us. When the editors at vnunet.com asked me to write this article, I ran a check back to the year 2000, using the 'smart archive' facility - and it was like looking back into the Stone Age.

Dotcom mania
This time five years ago, it was only just becoming apparent that computers could do more than just run accounting systems and control machine tools. The business news of the period was full of stories about 'dotcoms', companies that built their entire business on the internet. Some of those ventures have disappeared without trace; others, like the giant Amazon Corp retail empire, have gone from strength to strength.

But what's really funny is that in the spring of 2000, after stock prices got a little over-inflated and a few shareholders got their fingers burned, some pundits were talking about ecommerce and the internet as if they were short-term phenomena. Something like $30 trillion worth of business was transacted on the web last year. Maybe all that talk about bursting bubbles was a bit premature.

The pundits did get some things right, though. The cleverer ones predicted that the real revolution wouldn't affect just the dotcoms, but would sweep through just about every business on the planet. In 2000, established businesses were beginning to use the internet to lower their cost of sales, extend their reach, provide better customer service and automate their dealings with other businesses.

Companies in the motor industry, in pharmaceuticals and in computers were busy setting up the first B2BX services, which were then known as trading hubs or market sites. Some of the earliest examples were pretty creaky. Different hubs required suppliers to provide data in different, proprietary formats. As for the poor customers, they had to log on to almost as many different sites as they had suppliers in order to do business electronically. Some of these sites were so complex, it was easier to rent a truck, fill it with cash, drive to the store and pick up the goods yourself.

Joining the dots
But 2000 was also the year that work on XML started to pay off. No one remembers XML any more because they don't need to, but it was the raw database technology that made it possible to start joining the dots between businesses in the online world.

Something else that turned up in my research was a mountain of material about security - or the lack of it - on the internet at the turn of the millennium. It's hard to believe but as recently as five years ago, some people believed that school children could bring the whole ecommerce edifice tumbling down. In early 2000, 'hackers' (remember them?) launched so-called distributed denial-of-service attacks against prominent ecommerce sites and actually managed to close several down for the best part of a day. Shortly after that, an email virus dubbed the Love Bug wreaked havoc on businesses the world over, causing tens of millions of dollars worth of damage. A survey done soon after the bug hit showed many businesspeople believed that hacking attacks would damage confidence in ecommerce forever.

Scan the archives for this period and some things are conspicuously missing. In 2000, there were some early reports about web phones, but no indication of just how big the business was set to become. Back then, everyone still assumed that you'd need a desktop computer or a portable the size of a small briefcase. I can do more with my wristwatch than the consumer of 2000 could do with either of those electronic dinosaurs.

Back then it was just becoming possible to do your banking online, to order a credit card, buy insurance or invest in the stock market. But, incredibly, it was still a requirement of most of these services for the provider to get a copy of your signature on a piece of paper.

There were also very few people who guessed just how important TV would turn out to be. Everyone was so obsessed with the web, they forgot about the power of the device in the corner of their living room. How did you plan your family holiday this year? Crowded round a palmtop or in front of the family wide-screen? Answers on an electronic postcard, please.

Looking back can teach you a lot. It's easy to scoff at the mistakes of the past and at the failure of people then to even guess at what seems so blindingly obvious now. It makes you wonder what sort of world we'd live in today if the power of foresight was even half as strong as the power of hindsight.

This article appeared on ITWEEK