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TWO YEARS AGO, 9 Net Avenue Inc. was little more than a good name for an Internet business. Sales were nil, and it was unclear where the company-or the industry, for that matter-was heading. The game plan was to offer robust Web hosting for other companies, basically serving as a parking lot for torrents of TCP/IP traffic.
And that is what 9 Net Avenue did initially. But as quickly as the Internet has evolved into a worldwide nucleus of commerce, so has 9 Net Avenue. Web hosting is now just a portion of a business ranging from Web design and development to state-of-the-art electroniccommerce consulting services.
"We are not an ISP but a Web hoster, and that is an industry all its own in the Internet world," said Yuri Frid, 9 Net Avenue's vice president of sales.
9 Net Avenue is a growing new breed of Internet reseller where the product is almost exclusively service and virtual. Web commerce is the linchpin to which this burgeoning VAR with worldwide customers is latching its future.
The dynamics of the Internet and commerce are still jarring to Frid and company founder Michael Kofman. When the company first set up for business on the Net, people left credit-card numbers on an unsecured site.
"E-commerce is alive. We figured people would leave their telephone number, and we'd call them back. Instead, they left credit-card numbers, and it shocked us," Frid said.
But perhaps that is the way of the Internet:...