Talking up the Net sector

Optimism certainly hasn't left the Irish Internet industry, judging by the contributions of half a dozen industry speakers at the second annual conference of the Irish Internet Association yesterday. Last year, in the wake of the initial market collapse, speakers remained generally positive. This time, despite what accountant Mr Ossie Kilkenny described in his talk as the "dot.com massacre", the consensus seemed to be that the troubled new economy had hit bottom and was ready for a rebound, although perhaps a slow one.

Facts and figures promising future growth in Net-related industries abounded: $700 billion (€784 billion) to be spent online by 2005; e-business spend to rise from today's 15 per cent to 50 per cent of company budgets by 2005; and, among EU countries, the Republic ranked second in ebusiness readiness, just behind the UK.

Listeners were exhorted to look for business opportunities with the gorillas - the big companies that dominate their sector, such as eBay or Microsoft - or for symbiotic relationships with other companies.

Mr Kilkenny said many companies were folding because they had poor business models or failed to react fast enough to the changed market conditions, which he called "a slight slowdown".

The half-day conference was part of technology show e-XPO at the RDS, which continues today.