Jack McCarthy

In just a few years, observers will look back at today's e-commerce as nothing but the "primordial ooze" necessary to develop the full-blown economy that is bound to emerge over the Internet, according to an analyst speaking at a recent International Data Corp. conference on the Internet economy.

Dell Computer Corp. announced earlier this month an agreement to buy ConvergeNet Technologies Inc., a privately held storage networking company in San Jose, Calif.