Internet Business News
01-03-1995
The Internet shows no sign of slowing down its meteoric growth with new estimates saying that there will be over 200m people connected by the year 2000. INPUT, a global IT market intelligence firm, says that the Internet will become an ever-important part of life for many people. Peter Cunningham, president of INPUT, said: "The Internet will do for personal networking what the microcomputer did for personal computing." Most of the growth will be in the consumer marketplace, with markets being worth over US$200bn by the decade-end. Business-related activities may account for a quarter of this. "The weaknesses of the Internet -- such as security, file transfer and payment systems -- are just starting to be addressed by vendors such as DigiCash, Netscape Communications and RSA Data Security. The huge potential of the Internet market is acting as a magnet for vendors of all kinds, from Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, MCI and TCI, to hundreds of small vendors and thousands - if not tens of thousands of individuals. They will introduce the technology and services to solve the current problems of the Internet," said Cunningham. The Internet market has grown faster than expected in Hong Kong, from just one small and two large commercial providers at the start of 1994 to over four new providers and significant expansion of the existing players' facilities. The first providers on the market were Hong Kong SuperNet, Hong Kong Internet and Gateway Services and Internet On-line Hong Kong, followed by XXact Information Service (recently renamed Asia On-Line), Internet Connections, CyberNet and Hong Kong Link. Internet Connections has managed to carve a very special niche -- it sells Internet connections over the retail counter, while Hong Kong Link, a new service from HKIGS founder Aaron Cheung, has taken a bold step by offering untimed access for a flat monthly fee instead of the more commonplace pay-as-you-use method. China is also viewed as a market with great growth potential and many industry participants are waiting for government-backed liberalisation before launching services. The Internet is being positioned as a breakthrough technology for China as it will very difficult for the government to monitor communications.
Copyright 1995 M2 Communications, Ltd., All Rights Reserved.
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