The New Software - party like it's 1999

So Netscape had disproved the Law of Gravity - that it was possible and not illegal to create wealth without creating profit, or for that matter without creating revenue. New vistas were possible, and all the failed pioneers of the "video on demand" push (another correct Ellison bet time-shifted back by a decade) had to do little more than change their business cards to jump into the new new thing. The Java language grew out of just such a shift, and several Oracle VoD pioneers quickly hit the jackpot with repurposed "web" businesses.

Two virtuous cycles then spun into being, both with the tailwind of a good economy for most of the decade. In the first cycle, early pioneers in "the web" followed Netscape's path, with similar results. The new millionaires then pumped the newfound wealth back into angel money and venture capital, and funded successive waves of web companies. The second cycle was also a wonder of finance, in which new ventures would do deals with other such ventures for a mix of payments-in-kind and warrants; money didn't have to change hands for wealth to be created, and when any of the players went public, the proceeds would then spread across the industry.

The boom lasted until the Y2K crisis was passed and the tax bill came due in 2000, and produced lots of millionaires, even more chastened investors, and a huge advance in standards (e.g. CSS, JavaScript, Java, Ajax) and some critical framework software, such as Ruby, php, Linux, Apache, and Mysql).

The new companies had money, gusto, talent and energy; what most didn't have was a workable business model. Gravity returned (as gravity will), and it became clear that not only wasn't there a market for lots of online pet stores (to take one example), there might not be a market for any.

The market was ripe for a new model, and The New Software was finally ready to be born.