Connect Business Information Network, formerly known as MacNET, was a proprietary dial-up online network with a graphic user interface similar to AppleLink.
Contents
Launch
Mike Muller, a former VP of Apple Computer, launched MacNET in 1988. The mainframe end was programmed by Robert Lissner, the author of AppleWorks. The terminal software, also called MacNET, was sold through Macintosh software outlets and the network charged an hourly use fee.
Growth and decline
Use grew rapidly during the first years, but there was significant competition from America Online when that service launched a year later on the Macintosh platform. Eventually, the MacNET service name and the company name were changed to CONNECT.
The software remained MacNET on the Mac side and PCNet came out for the PC market. By the early 2000s, Connect became web-based and closed within several years of the widespread adoption of the WWW standard.