This will provide immediate advantages for companies who need to move huge amounts of data around, and at present are forced to route that traffic via London and elsewhere. However, over the coming months we will be announcing a series of initiatives for Scottish individuals and organisations of all types and sizes to benefit from the Internet and e-commerce. Electronic commerce is the future of commerce. We believe that we can put Scotland in the vanguard of this new industrial revolution. Today, the market is small and fragmented, and just as in the days when entrepreneurial Scots founded great trading centres such as Hong Kong, we believe that modern Scots entrepreneurs can found a great electronic trading centre - but this time right here in Scotland.
Internet exchanges are where the convergence happens.
If you don't have one you become a backwater. If you have it you can attract new businesses and grow your own. It's a cumulative effect and everybody wants to be with you. The best known and most heavily used exchanges are clustered in California - the Mae West and Abovenet exchanges are across the road from one another in San Jose, with another just a few miles to the north at Palo Alto. Britain currently has two, one in Manchester and the main London Internet Exchange, LINX, at Docklands.