What was needed was a way to hook the smaller computers into the minicomputers while simultaneously gaining print and file-sharing capabilities internally. Something like a local area network, which Metcalfe developed in a rudimentary form in 1973 and dubbed Ethernet. The concept of the LAN caught on quickly, but Ethernet ensured its place in history when it became an open standard. Intel wanted to sell chips, Xerox printers and DEC minicomputers. And the Ethernet standard itself, which has undergone more reinventions than Madonna, is still a force in networking.
Ethernet is the on-ramp for the Internet.
On the business front, Ethernet showed that companies could embrace open standards and still make money. His inability in 1980 to convince IBM to adopt Ethernet instead of Olof Soderblom's competing Token Ring technology.