Cisco grew exceptionally fast during the Internet boom. For a brief time, in fact, Cisco reached the ultimate level of corporate prominence. In late March 2000, Cisco achieved a stock market capitalization (valuation) of more than $550 million. That officialy made Cisco the single most valuable corporation in the world at that time - literally, a "Fortune 1" company.

When the stock market bubble burst, however, Cisco lost more than 80% of it's market cap and now clings to a spot in bottom of the Fortune 100. Cisco proved to be wildly overvalued and could not sustain its growth rate. Nonetheless, Cisco continues to produce high-quality gear and remains a powerful force in the networking industry.

Carnivore

Privacy advocates, some ISPs, and others expressed outrage over Carnivore. Concerns over Carnivore gradually have faded away, however, as people gained a greater understanding of network sniffer technology. Turns out that Carnivore is no more of a privacy threat than numerous others... particularly the fabled Echelon system.

IPv6 - No More Address Space

Several changes occured in the late 1990s, however, that prevented an impending "address crisis." An improved routing technology called CIDR was successfully deployed, helping ISPs better manage their IP addresses. In addition, network appliances failed to materialize. Had the ideas around appliances materialized, everyone's toasters, ovens and televisions would each have been given their own IP address on the Internet in order to communicate and do wonderful things. It didn't happen.

Although the Internet doesn't have much need for IPv6 today, expect this technology to make a revival in the coming years.

Conclusion