IBM had 10,000 e-business customers by 1999.

The term "e-business" was coined by IBM's marketing and Internet team in 1996.

It’s hard to remember today that the Internet was just a toddler in the early 1990s. But Amazon.com didn’t launch until 1995, the same year eBay was founded. Amidst all the high-profile ideas and paradigm shifts of the time, IBM took a pragmatic approach to how the Internet could impact modern business transactions.

IBM's E-business is what happens when you combine the resources of traditional information systems with the vast reach of the Web and connect critical business systems directly to critical business constituencies - customers, employees and suppliers via Intranets, Extranets and via the Web. By connecting your traditional IT systems to the Web you become an e-business. Most companies deploy applications on the Internet making it easier to do the things you already do.