Asia Lags In Bumpy Internet Revolution
internetnews.com
[NEW DELHI--Reuters] The Internet may be a great leveller. But getting
hooked onto it is not an even race.
Experts at the four-day India Internet World conference in New Delhi last
month predicted a shift from the Industrial Age to a Digital Era, but there were
enough signs that it would take a while for the globe to become a cybernetic
village.
Christmas this year could see U.S. shoppers heralding big-time electronic
commerce, but Asia is still a step behind. Its companies are busy boosting
intranets--Internet-like networks that link up the interiors of companies.
Before sales, content and services on the Internet bring in a new age of
communications and business, intranets must bring immediate productivity
gains and a technological backbone to help easy commerce, experts said.
"While a lot of people talk about the Web (World Wide Web) and
e-commerce, a lot of money in industry is being spent to ensure that I (firms)
have my (their) own enterprise safe," Mike Antonelli, International Business
Machines Corp.'s Asia-Pacific e-business programme director, told
delegates.
Intranets and "extranets," their extension to include suppliers and contractors,
still form the leitmotif of the Internet technology business in large parts of the
world.
An IBM document says that by 2000, firms will spend $64 billion worldwide
on intranets.
IBM says 80 percent of companies use the Net but only seven percent
conduct e-business. E-business includes intranets, extranets and e-commerce.
Intranets are a major focus because they help companies save money and
boost efficiency immediately.
E-commerce, still an emerging frontier, entails actual sales or transactions
involving customers on the Internet. Its potential is limited by the usage of
Internet.
A spokesman for industry research firm International Data Corp told Reuters
in an electronic mail response that 15 to 20 percent of firms in the Asia-Pacific
region, on an average, were planning on implementing an intranet.
He said all of these companies were looking to investing in security solutions
for their networks within a two-year period.
"The countries leading the intranet implementation in the region were Australia,
South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and China, with Hong Kong and Taiwan
seemingly lagging behind the mainland companies in their intranet deployment,"
he said.
Regional disparities in logging on to the Internet are wide, according to IDC
forecasts.
The Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan, which currently has around 12.2
million Internet users, is forecast to have 35.3 million users in 2002. Japan's
users would increase from the current 7.35 million to 19.4 million over the
same period.
In contrast, the United States now has 56 million Internet users, and will have
more than 137 million in 2002.
Western Europe is forecast to have only around 44.3 million by 2002, up
from the current 28.9 million.
However, according to Micromedia, which organised the New Delhi
conference, Japan already has 10 million users and China five million.
Only Japan and Australia were close to getting on to e-commerce in a big
way at the moment, IBM's Antonelli told Reuters. Australia, with 3.6 million
connections, has a high, 26-percent penetration in relation to its population.
IDC estimates Australian users at 5.76 million in 2002. China is forecast to
have 9.4 million users, Taiwan 3.3 million, Hong Kong 2.43 million, Malaysia
1.34 million, the Philippines 0.9 million and Singapore 1.37 million in that year.
Even in the United States, the Big Bang is still awaited.
"Christmas 1998, I think is going to be the first year of serious consumer
shopping on the Internet..." Bill Melton, chief executive officer of CyberCash
Inc, told Reuters.
Things may change soon. According to Forrester Research Inc, exchange of
goods and services over the Net are set to cross $327 billion by 2002, up
from $17 billion in 1998.
The number of World Wide Web purchasers is expected to shoot up from 18
million in 1997 to 128 million in 2002, industry magazine CNET said last
month.
The future may come in faster, because Internet has taken only five years to
reach the number radio took 25 years and television took 15 years, experts
say.
But roadblocks are seen.
Antonelli said spending on Internet technologies was still inhibited by a number
of factors, including security concerns, lack of skills, start-up costs and
perceptions of benefits.
There are also lingering anxieties on content on the Internet, which some say
cannot be ignored.
"The industry in the U.S. is so focused on technology that there are very few
thinking on social effects," Ken Freed, publisher of Internet magazine Media
Visions and an analyst of social effects of interactive media, told Reuters.
Freed singled out sex scandals involving U.S. President Bill Clinton this year
as a case in point.
"Internet played a role in making the story public and did so in a way below
established journalistic standards," he said.
Beyond such pitfalls, experts predict radical changes.
Antonelli mentioned Amazon, a "bookshop without books," as an example of
how technology could change businesses. Intellectual skills will now emerge as
a key force, he said.
"You are beginning to disassemble the competencies of a company," he said.
In management-speak, that would mark a shift from "standalone enterprises"
to "value nets."
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