But as busy as they are tinkering with the innards of the Internet, nothing beats security on their list of technology toys. Almost 40 percent said VPNs will be important or extremely important over the next year. And 47.6 percent of companies actively investing in e-business said VPNs will have high or very high impact in the next 12 months. FastTrack companies, of course, want to protect online systems from hackers.
Experts say that's because it's expen sive and difficult to implement correctly.
And they're in no hurry to move to the Linux or Windows 2000 operating systems. They just don't see much advantage in resource-intensive migrations. Top 10 Manufacturing 1. Best Buy Co. Inc., FastTracker No. 148, is one example of a company that's got plenty of e-business infrastructure to protect. Cargill Inc., the world's largest private company, is another FastTracker that's embracing VPNs.