Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: The world economy has undergone enormous changes since the late 1980s. The trend of globalisation has more and more integrated societies and linked continents with one another. The result has been the development of free trade areas such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area), the EU customs union, and emerging markets in Asia. Countries had to cope with this development of a near free market economy and higher competition. Governments introduced new laws and regulations and great reforms and adjustments had to be made. The effects of the above led to great impacts on general business and the entire world economy. Companies started to enter new markets. To link all its facilities and office buildings and factories, the Intranet was established. With such an efficient LAN network, all the offices of a worldwide operating organization were linked with the central computer system of the company¿s headquarters and data and information was easily accessible. At the same time, PC users discovered the Internet leading to a worldwide revolution and to the so-called Information Age. The Internet has experienced tremendous growth during the last few years in the western world and companies started to introduce their own web sites on the Internet. Basically, everyone had access to these company sites and firms started to advertise themselves and to offer their products and services online and developed new marketing concepts in the e-commerce business. At the same time the telecommunication industry was booming. Online providers and mobile telecommunications companies experienced fast and significant growth due to the World Wide Web, deregulation and lower prices. The New Economy was born and companies came into existence like Yahoo! and Amazon.com, and so many more creating millions of new high-tech jobs, especially in the United States and later on also in Europe. Demand for personal computers and servers have increased dramatically. The hardware needed had to be provided, which created another boom in the industry. Chipmakers like Intel and AMD became successful global players and new technologies were introduced at an ever-faster speed. At the same time the global economy brought up new start up companies onto the market, which are producing other important components of computers like modems and video and networking cards and high speed cables. Software companies introduced new programs needed, creating new high-income [...]