The protocol wars are over and TCP/IP won. TCP/IP is now universally recognized as the pre-eminent communications protocol for linking together diverse computer systems. The importance of interoperable data communications and global computer networks is no longer debated. But that was not always the case. When I wrote the first edition of this book, IPX was far and away the leading PC communications protocol. Microsoft did not bundle communications protocols in their operating system. Corporate networks were so dependent on SNA that many corporate network administrators had not even heard of TCP/IP. Even UNIX, the mother of TCP/IP, nursed a large number of pure UUCP networks
