Digital Island started life doing something else entirely, and only in January 1997 did it begin selling the global network that made its name. The San Francisco company offered businesses the reach of the public internet with the reliability of a private network. Customers got speed guarantees, custom billing and security services. When Digital Island filed to go public in 1999, companies were putting their key applications online and worrying about the public internet's slow, unreliable stretches.

From California to the World

Digital Island was incorporated in California on February 10, 1994. It took the name Digital Island on August 15, 1996. Its Global IP Applications Network carried customer traffic across the United States, Asia and Europe. The company planned to grow by hiring direct sales staff and adding agents and resellers in all three regions. Its targets were corporations deploying business applications worldwide.

Ten Dollars and a Takeover

Digital Island priced its IPO at $10 a share in June 1999 and listed on the Nasdaq National Market as ISLD. Later that year it bought Sandpiper Networks, a content delivery company, to speed up websites. The bust hit hard. In May 2001 Cable & Wireless, the British telecom group, launched a cash tender offer of $3.40 a share for Digital Island. The deal went through, and Digital Island stopped reporting as a public company in September 2001.

Cover: Anacapa Island, James McNeill Whistler. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for an island (Digital Island).