Realizing Frictionless Global E-Commerce

Most of us in the United States take the lnternet for granted. This stands to reason as it is estimated that over 80 million people are connected to the Internet. Moreover, most businesses in the U.S. have established or are moving toward implementing an Internet presence of some kind. Andy Grove, Chai~man at Intel, is quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying, "Today, we are preoccupied with lnternet companies. In five years, that label will be meaningless. Why? All companies will be lnternet companies." Is Mr. Grove limiting his prediction to U.S. companies? Of course we cannot know from this excerpt, but we can observe that something remarkable is happening with the Internet globally. However, will the U.S. continue to dominate the Web? Current research suggests that this will not be the case.