"There's money to be made on what people do not know."
Paulina Borsook
Eric Thiese
, principal of Liberty Hill Cyberwerks (San Francisco, CA), provides Internet training and consulting services. He helps businesses obtain basic Internet E-mail services and set up WWW (World Wide Web) servers. These WWW servers are physically located at Thiese's home office.
For his main machine, he uses a custom 66-MHz 486 computer running on BSDi that's built to his specifications for longevity. His setup also includes a T1 line, a Livingston router, a Tielink CSU/DSU (channel service unit/data service unit), and the Free Software Foundation's versi
on of Gopher. In addition, he has three other machines, including a 386 that he uses to run Liberty Hill.
As his business grows, Thiese may reach out to local HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) writers and contractors, but because he has more than a few dozen clients, his sole proprietorship would be stretched beyond its resources if he did so. Thiese believes that the opportunity for a business like his may exist for only a couple more years. But for now, there is a market window that he can take advantage of since "most of the [Internet] tools are on Unix, and there's a lot that people don't know." This may change as easier-to-use Internet tools for Macs and Windows-based machines become available.
There's another reason why his business is thriving, however: Large computer and communications corporations and technology-consulting firms have not yet targeted small businesses wanting a storefront Internet presence as a market. But this situation may also change as the commercialization of the Int
ernet grows.
Or it may turn out that most businesses won't need E-mail or WWW sites. Thiese says that since it's easy to tell when a node is being accessed, it's also easy to tell if an Internet node is providing a customer's clients with the information or access that they want. And if a node isn't being accessed often, he and his customers can then figure out ways to make the site more helpful, more entertaining, or more interactive.
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Paulina Borsook is a San Francisco-based writer who has written previously for BYTE about security issues. You can contact her on the Internet at
loris@well.sf.ca.us
or on BIX c/o "editors."
One Person's Internet Business
