Certainly, some manufacturers, such as Microcom, Microsoft, and Compaq have relatively strong representation on the continent. Nevertheless, continent-wide, the coverage is spotty and is concentrated in the countries that show appreciable commercial promise. In some countries, this situation has forced us to take an active role in making available peripheral hardware such as modems, while being careful not to create the impression that we can provide extensive support for them. One advantage we do provide is that we can call upon our global organization to help local offices resolve technical issues quickly, if necessary by contacting the original vendors directly. As is the case elsewhere, we find a lot of excitement over the Worldwide Web.
Numerous projects are under way to put together web sites addressing varying needs.
In one respect, the challenges in Africa are similar to those elsewhere such as the availability of easy to use integrated development environments for creating Web applications, and the availability of bandwidth with which to make these applications available. We continue to experiment with numerous technologies and concepts, and expect to end this year with positive results from a concerted effort to bring a deeper Web experience to both our access customers, content partners, and to the Web world at large. Summary Our approach is to assume that fundamentally, African needs in terms of Internet access and enhanced services are no different than the needs of other parts of the world. To be sure, unique African conditions make the tasks of providing identical capabilities to those available in other parts of the world more difficult, but not impossible. As noted above, we have developed excellent relationships with the PTTs in the areas where we operate.