In 1973 at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC), one of the first local area networking (LAN) technologies was invented: Ethernet. Today, Ethernet is the dominant LAN standard but, as is the case with most other information technologies, Ethernet was neither the only available alternative nor a technology well suited for all networking needs from the outset. In fact, when it was first commercialized in 1980, Ethernet was a relatively expensive, high-end technology, suited for connecting minicomputers or workstations but too expensive for connecting microcomputers or personal computers (PCs), soon to be the largest LAN market.