(FORTUNE Magazine) – If you think of the Dow Jones industrial index as 20th-century and stodgy, you could well find yourself welcoming FORTUNE's e-50 index as millennial and fly. We want this assembly of companies to serve dependably as Wall Street's barometer of e-commerce, so we've chosen the constituents with utmost care. The list encompasses wildly ambitious startups like Global Crossing, which hopes its transatlantic network will serve as the backbone for entire e-industries, and old-timers like AT&T, which was founded in 1875, began trading publicly in 1900, and today gets about 20% of its revenue from data services. We've picked Internet auctioneer eBay, which operates with a skeletal staff of just 138 employees, and behemoth IBM, which has almost 300,000.

Dozens of dot-coms failed to make the cut. We eliminated companies that we deemed passing fads (the rejects shall remain nameless) in favor of promising startups like Razorfish, a new-generation consulting firm in Manhattan that eked out a $2 million profit in the past four quarters. In fact, more than half the companies here are profitable--remarkable, given that this is an e-list.

The most important shared attribute of the companies on these pages has nothing to do with margins or size. These companies get it: They understand the profundity of the Internet and its power to change business. We're confident you'll see interesting performance from them. So check 'em out.

--Christine Chen

[A]Revenue Four qtrs. ended 6/30 [B]Profits Four qtrs. ended 6/30 [C]Market cap As of 11/4/99 [D]Employees[1] [E]IPO date Year founded[2] [F]What makes it a FORTUNe-50 company

ALL FIGURES IN MILLIONS

E-COMPANIES

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] America Online[3] $4,777 $762 $164,308 12,100 3/19/92 www.aol.com 1985 [F]With 19 million subscribers, AOL's the No. 1 online service and a Net predator, having gobbled CompuServe and Netscape. Its biggest challenge: sustaining stellar growth--its stock is up 300% this year.

Charles Schwab $4,113 $498 $34,194 13,300 9/23/87 www.schwab.com 1986 [F]The Web's top stockbroker controls $263 billion in customer assets and conducts 67% of its trades online. Success now depends on fending off Wall Street firms that want a piece of the online action.

Amazon.com $1,015 -$291 $21,202 2,100 5/15/97 www.amazon.com 1994 [F]The retail e-heavyweight has 12 million customers and a projected $1.4 billion in sales this year. Can it ever make a profit? With CEO Jeff Bezos' lavish spending habits, it's hard to tell.

E*Trade Group[4] $621 -$54 $8,341 1,735 8/16/96 www.etrade.com 1982 [F]CEO Christos Cotsakos wants you to go to E*Trade for every financial service imaginable--bill paying, stock trades, and mortgages. A recent surge of acquisitions may bring that dream closer to reality.

Knight/Trimark Group[5] $618 $119 $4,389 446 7/8/98 www.knight-sec.com 1995 [F]Capitalizing on the convergence of technology and Wall Street, Knight/Trimark handles nearly 20% of all Nasdaq trades, making it the back office for much of the stock trading that people do online.

Yahoo $341 $22 $47,946 803 4/12/96 www.yahoo.com 1995 [F] With steady ad revenues, inroads into e-commerce and auctions, and acquisitions like GeoCities, the Internet's most popular portal is ready to compete with AOL.

Ameritrade Holding[6] $301 $12 $3,740 985 3/4/97 www.ameritradeholding.com 1992 [F]Ameritrade is only the sixth-largest online brokerage, but it seems to have positioned itself as the choice of the masses by charging just $8 a trade. The company now generates 80% of its revenue from the Web.

EarthLink Network $254 -$88 $1,409 1,343 1/22/97 www.earthlink.net 1994 [F]This ISP is on fire. EarthLink connects more than 1.5 million users to the Net; it recently snapped up rival MindSpring and announced the rollout of superfast DSL service.

Priceline.com $189 -$125 $7,963 194 3/30/99 www.priceline.com 1998 [F]Backed by an IPO that raised $160 million, the "name your own price" company is expanding beyond airline tickets to auto sales, home financing, and online groceries.

CMGI[7] $176 $476 $12,567 1,024 1/25/94 www.cmgi.com 1986 [F]CEO David Wetherell has transformed the company into a major Net venture capital firm. With its acquisition of the AltaVista portal, CMGI gains crucial promotional leverage for its other subsidiaries.

Lycos[7] $136 -$52 $5,687 456 4/2/96 www.lycos.com 1995 [F]No longer an also-ran portal, Lycos now gets 30 million visitors monthly. It's looking to diversify through the formation of a venture fund and the acquisition of the financial information site Quote.com.

Excite@Home[8] $129 -$324 $14,647 570 7/11/97 www.home.net 1995 [F]Excite@Home's motto is "All band, all device, all the time." But its outlook might better be phrased "All up in the air" until AT&T decides what to do with its 26% stake.

eBay $125 $7 $17,106 138 9/24/98 www.ebay.com 1995 [F]eBay has outgrown its Beanie Babies roots; it should net $15 million this year. With the purchase of Butterfield & Butterfield, the 134-year-old auction house, eBay's aiming for high-end customers.

DoubleClick $103 -$22 $5,947 482 2/23/98 www.doubleclick.net 1996 [F]DoubleClick has pulled in $136 million in revenues this year selling online ad space and delivering online ads for clients like Microsoft and IBM. Some 10,000 sites use its ad-tracking software.

RealNetworks $89 -$4 $9,148 434 11/21/97 www.real.com 1994 [F]If you download Fiona Apple songs or videos to your Web browser, chances are you use RealNetworks software. It enables Websites to broadcast music and video content, and enables users to receive it.

CNet $79 $40 $3,481 491 7/2/96 www.cnet.com 1995 [F]The tech-news-and-information supplier has become a leader in its field, thanks in part to a deal with NBC that makes it the Peacock Network's primary source of infotech news on the Net.

Healtheon $68 -$68 $2,347 648 2/11/99 www.healtheon.com 1995 [F]Netscape guru Jim Clark founded Healtheon to propel health care into cyberspace. Results have been mixed. The stock is up, but Healtheon actually gets 80% of its revenue offline, from consulting and IT support.

eToys $38 -$47 $6,276 306 5/20/99 www.etoys.com 1996 [F]When eToys launched in 1997, skeptics said toy industry titans, like an army of GI Joe dolls, would destroy it. Instead, Toysrus.com tanked, and eToys acquired its closest competitor, toys.com.

VerticalNet $8 -$21 $2,515 220 2/11/99 www.verticalnet.com 1995 [F]VerticalNet runs more than 50 trading communities, where vendors can hawk everything from steel pipes to almond butter. The company hopes that product sales will replace advertising as the primary revenue generator.

NET SOFTWARE AND SERVICE COMPANIES

Microsoft[3] $19,747 $7,785 $471,573 31,396 3/13/86 www.microsoft.com 1975 [F]Microsoft would like you to think that all its revenues come from e-business--not quite. Though all its products are Web-integrated, people often still buy Office and Windows 98 for offline tasks.

Oracle[9] $9,063 $1,332 $85,776 44,000 3/12/86 www.oracle.com 1977 [F]Oracle is storming e-business--around 65% of its revenues are from the Net. Look for this number to grow in the future as customers' reliance on stand-alone databases shrinks.

Intuit[7] $848 $377 $5,942 3,675 3/12/93 www.intuit.com 1983 [F]Still king of personal-finance software with its durable Quicken and TurboTax programs, Intuit hopes a pact with AOL and Excite to develop Quicken.com will make its business more Net-focused.

Network Associates $785 -$127 $2,871 2,700 10/6/92 www.networkassociate.com 1992 [F]If the Internet is the information superhighway, then this company is the highway patrol. Network Associates is the No. 1 maker of encryption and antivirus software, controlling 17% of the market.

Cambridge Tech. Partners $628 $35 $726 4,444 4/12/93 www.ctp.com 1991 [F]A specialist in management consulting and systems integration, Cambridge gets 40% of its revenue from e-business; a couple of lucrative new contracts should make the percentage soar.

TMP Worldwide $585 $10 $2,976 5,200 12/16/96 www.tmpw.com 1967 [F]To break into e-business, headhunter TMP has made more than 100 acquisitions since 1990. Its job-search site, Monster.com, features more than 180,000 listings and actually makes a profit.

USWeb/CKS $375 -$182 $3,057 1,960 12/8/97 www.uswebcks.com 1995 [F]USWeb/CKS is one of the largest Internet professional firms, developing Websites, advertising campaigns, and e-commerce applications for the likes of Apple, Levi's, and Schwab.

Citrix Systems $323 $93 $7,169 620 12/8/95 www.citrix.com 1989 [F]Citrix develops application server software for the Web for customers like Cadbury Schweppes and the U.S. Navy. Microsoft, which owns 6% of the company, accounts for 15% of its sales.

Macromedia $167 $24 $2,690 553 12/13/93 www.macromedia.com 1992 [F]Some people compare the company to a cyber-Michelangelo (uh, okay...); it provides customers with Web publishing tools, CD and video players, and graphics-development software. Network Solutions $142 $17 $4,801 385 9/26/97 www.netsol.com 1979 [F]The government is forcing competition on Network Solutions, the top distributor of domain names. Watch for the company, which gets 90% of its revenues from this area, to expand into IT services.

Concentric Network $110 -$82 $1,054 508 8/1/97 www.concentric.com 1991 [F]Concentric was your typical garage startup; today it provides Web hosting, Internet telephony, and virtual private networks for biggies like Microsoft's WebTV Networks and AT&T. Exodus Communications $108 -$82 $7,080 472 3/19/98 www.exodus.net 1992 [F]With 13 Internet data centers, Exodus hosts servers and manages Websites for customers like CBS Sports and eBay. Through acquisitions, it's expanding into security services.

BroadVision $71 $10 $6,777 271 6/21/96 www.broadvision.com 1993 [F]The company's marketing software system, One-to-One, enables users to tailor-make Websites to manage order fulfillment, billing, payment, and customer service.

Inktomi[6] $71 -$24 $5,709 185 6/10/98 www.inktomi.com 1996 [F]Named after a mythical Lakota arachnid, Inktomi built the search engine technology for Net stars like Yahoo and Lycos. It's on a tear--the stock has risen about 1,100% since its June 1998 IPO. Security First Technologies[10] $44 -$19 $1,345 312 5/23/96 www.s1.com 1995 [F]The company was ahead of its time with its ill-fated attempt at launching an online bank in 1995. Now it sells software that enables others to put their banking operations online.

Razorfish $36 $2 $1,896 414 4/27/99 www.razorfish.com 1995 [F]Razorfish is a newfangled e-consulting firm with an impressive list of clients: Charles Schwab, Time Warner, and the Smithsonian Institution. It helps them with Web strategy and systems integration.

NET HARDWARE COMPANIES

IBM $87,448 $7,701 $167,567 291,067 1911 www.ibm.com 1911 [F]Okay, IBM still makes much of its money on mainframes. But with fully 25% of revenues coming from e-business, Big Blue has also shown up a lot of whippersnappers.com.

Lucent Technologies[4] $38,303 $4,766 $211,415 153,000 4/4/96 www.lucent.com 1995 [F]Data equipment constitutes just an estimated 20% of Lucent's revenues, but its acquisition of Ascend shows the company is serious about bridging old phone technologies with Internet networks. Intel $28,194 $7,371 $285,803 64,500 1971 www.intel.com 1968 [F]Intel has blazed its way into the Internet economy, selling almost $1 billion a month (or about 50% of revenues) on the Web--in products ranging from chips to motherboards.

Dell Computer[11] $21,670 $1,750 $110,530 24,400 6/22/88 www.dell.com 1984 [F]Dell and e-business? Well, duh! The Austin computer maker was one of the first to take advantage of e-tailing. The biggest surprise may be that Dell nonetheless generates only 40% of its revenues from its Website. Cisco Systems[7] $12,154 $2,096 $237,215 21,000 2/16/90 www.cisco.com 1984 [F]Cisco's equipment that directs Net traffic is the basis for entire e-industries. CEO John Chambers has bought companies at breakneck speed--12 so far this year, with plans to nab 20 to 25 next year.

Sun Microsystems[3] $11,726 $1,031 $85,861 29,700 3/4/86 www.sun.com 1982 [F]Sun's servers are integral to the speed and accessibility of many Websites. Yet surprisingly, the company, whose slogan is "The network is the computer," says just 50% of sales come from the Net.

EMC $4,459 $967 $75,371 9,700 4/24/86 www.emc.com 1979 [F]Only 10% of EMC's sales come from the Web, but its data-storage systems are so essential to Internet efficiency that the company demands a spot on this list.

Qualcomm[6] $3,937 $201 $43,919 11,600 12/13/91 www.qualcomm.com 1981 [F]It's been a killer year for the San Diego company. After a lengthy battle with Ericsson, Qualcomm will likely succeed in getting its technology chosen as the standard for the next generation of Internet-enabled cell phones.

Network Appliance[9] $335 $42 $6,327 816 11/21/95 www.netapp.com 1992 [F]Almost anyone looking for storage on the Net turns to Network Appliance, which makes cache systems that retain frequently viewed information. Sales have grown more than 70% in each of the past 17 quarters.

Broadcom $335 $40 $15,994 436 4/17/98 www.broadcom.com 1991 [F]Not every semiconductor has to do with the Internet--but all of Broadcom's do. Its chips are used in cable modems and high-speed networking gear--the conduits and ramps of the e-highway.

Juniper Networks $31 -$30 $14,455 190 6/25/99 www.juniper.net 1992 [F]Juniper went public in June at $34 a share, and is now trading around $275. Its flagship product, a super-speedy Internet router, accounts for almost all its revenues.

NET COMMUNICATION COMPANIES

AT&T $56,968 $6,037 $154,791 107,800 1900 www.att.com 1875 [F]Ma Bell, an e-biz? Sort of. AT&T gets less than 20% of revenues from data traffic. It hopes its pricey cable TV play works, so that it won't be stuck wiring voice calls from Topeka to Omaha well into the next millennium.

MCI WorldCom $30,720 -$883 $162,492 77,000 8/11/89 www.wcom.com 1983 [F]With its record-breaking $129 billion acquisition of Sprint this year, MCI WorldCom faces growing pains. It may have to divest part of its valuable Internet backbone--you can bet there will be plenty of takers.

Qwest Communications $3,424 -$5 $27,404 8,700 6/24/97 www.qwest.com 1997 [F]Though only 23% of its revenues are from data services, Qwest bills itself as a next-generation telco. There's truth to that. Analysts predict that in five years, half of Qwest's revenues will be data-derived.

Global Crossing[12] $691 $79 $26,109 10,000 8/17/98 www.globalcrossing.com 1997 [F]Global Crossing's goal is to network the world through a web of undersea cables. It's starting slowly--this year data revenues will account for less than one-third of its estimated $870 million in sales.

REPORTER ASSOCIATES Christine Chen, Feliciano Garcia, Ahmad Diba, and Karen Vella-Zarb

Notes

[1]As of latest fiscal year end, unless otherwise noted. [2]For some companies, only data on date of incorporation were available. [3]Data are for fiscal year ended June 30, 1999. [4]Data are for fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 1999. [5]Revenues include net interest. [6]Financial data are for fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 1999; employees as of Sept. 30, 1998. [7]Data are for fiscal year ended July 31, 1999. [8]Legal name is At Home Corp. [9]Financial data are for the four quarters ended July 31, 1999. [10]Name change to S1 Corp. pending. [11]Financial data are for the four quarters ended Aug. 31, 1999. [12]Employee figure includes Frontier, acquired Sept. 28, 1999.