It pronounced that Scots were bucking a new north-south divide in Britain on the Internet. Scotland provides a surprisingly strong potential for future growth. Scotland has one of the highest PC penetration levels but also one of the strongest potentials for growth. We think there are two reasons. The hi-tech and banking industry around Edinburgh is quite distinct.
People have access at work and want to take the experience home.
And in rural regions it's attractive to people to be able to shop and bank online. This is gratifying news for us North British, especially those in our eastern marches, but the statistics are seemingly at variance with figures produced earlier this month by the Scottish Executive. It's catching up with North America in terms of technology, design, and e-commerce. Scotland has not yet taken off to the same degree, but we are moving into another gear now. That gear-change is scheduled to happen on September 15 in a room in Edinburgh the size of a large cupboard when a combination of servers and routers called ScotIX, the Scottish Internet Exchange, is switched on.