NETCOM On-Line Communication Services, Inc. was an Internet service provider based in San Jose, California. It was established in 1988 by Bob Rieger, an information systems engineer for Lockheed and Bill Gitow of System V. Netcom began in San Jose, California as a service to enable local students to access university networks off campus. The original accounts were all dial-up shell accounts on the Intel 80386 Tandy computers running Xenix, with email addresses in the format user[at]netcom.com. Netcom soon served 95% of the San Francisco Bay Area.
When it was first released, Rieger was the only system administrator for the company. Users call early in the morning to troubleshoot Internet access until they hired night staff. In 1992, the company was incorporated.
As the World Wide Web became more popular, and users were looking for an easy way to browse the Web, Netcom launched a Windows 3.1-based program called NetCruiser (originally called Internet Xpress, but there were legal issues with calling that name , so it was changed in the latter part of the development - although email addresses still remain user[at]ix.netcom.com). The NetCruiser service became very popular and made Netcom one of the leading Internet service providers in the mid-1990s. Netcom also had T1 business, Frame Relay, UUCP and dedicated telephone services.
In February 1995, Rieger turned the Netcom chairman to David W. Garrison, ahead of SkyTel. Under his leadership, the company ventured into the business services market with web hosting and high-speed business connectivity products.