"Ireland has the potential to become a world centre for digital distribution of software over the Internet and a niche player in key areas of electronic commerce." - John Travers of Forfas speaking at the launch of a government- sponsored report on e-commerce potential in Ireland.
"Now is the time to unlock the broadest possibilities of this technology and the Internet by tearing down the walls between vendors so that all customers can talk to one another." - Extract from a letter to AOL from Microsoft and seven other companies, including Yahoo and AT&T, urging that AOL open its chat network to support rival instant messaging systems.
"We remain steadfast against backing down on the principle that this is very unfriendly to our consumers. Microsoft is essentially emulating the behaviour of a hacker." - AOL spokeswoman Ann Brackbill in response to the cat and mouse game that ensued, with Microsoft engineers working to evade AOL roadblocks and AOL inventing new obstacles just as quickly.
Monitor compiled by Deirdre Veldon. Page layout by Sarah Marriott. Text-only email to computimes@irish-times.ie preferred (rather than fax, post, phone). No attachments, please. Private correspondence should be marked "Not for publication".