Internet Top Guns Talk About Haves, Have-Nots

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October 17, 2000 (6:40 PM EDT)

Internet Top Guns Talk About Haves, Have-Nots

By Charles Bermant,

SEATTLE -- Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos told a conference on solving the digital divide that a few customers around the world have figured out a way to buy books online, even if they don't have a credit card.

"We got one order from Bulgaria, where they had taped two $100 bills inside a floppy disk," he said. "There was also a message: 'The custom officers will steal our money, but they don't read English.'"

Bezos said the company filled the order, and didn't worry that the customer had not included quite enough to cover the whole thing.

"The key factor as to whether developing countries can use technology is how well they can educate their people," he said.

One doesn't automatically equate Amazon.com (stock: AMZN), Microsoft Corp. (stock: MSFT), Sun Microsystems Inc. (stock: SUNW), and WorldCom Inc. (stock: WCOM) with solving the vast chasm between the electronic haves and have-nots -- but corporations are necessary part of the attempt to narrow of the digital divide, at least according to executives from the industry giants.

They are meeting at a conference called Creating Digital Dividends, sponsored by the World Resources Institute.

Speaking about the environmental aspects of the Internet, Bezos said some developing companies will have an advantage over "developed" ones.

"Some countries will be able to skip entire layers of infrastructure that we had to build," he said. "Locations with poor landline infrastructures can go directly to cellular and fiber. And if there is a strong e-commerce component, then they won't have to build as many shopping malls."

The theme of Bezos' panel --"The Industry: Accepting the Challenge, Exploiting the Opportunities" -- was that corporations provide a necessary part of the narrowing of the digital divide, but will need to marshal a variety of forces in these efforts.

Success may also come from unlikely places.

Panelist John Gage, chief research officer for Sun, predicted that the device that will do the most to narrow the divide and "end up in every remote village in the world" is the new Internet-enabled Sony Playstation, due to reach the market next month.

Gage also said that narrowing the digital divide requires a co-operative effort between people from all occupations and of all ages.

"Every time a technology answers a question it raises a new one," Gage said. "Closing this gap requires a new way of thinking. Industry makes the cheap materials that allows innovative people to assemble components that can change people's lives."

Dr. Vinton Cerf, the WorldCom senior vice president of Internet architecture and technology who is credited with inventing the protocols on which the Internet was based, outlined some of the virtues needed for Internet success.

They include connectivity, content, community, and commerce.

"We talk about the digital divide as if there are more 'haves' than 'have-nots,' but it's the other way around," Cerf said. "The idea that the Internet is for everyone is easy to say but hard to achieve. There are many barriers. No country is immune to the problem, although Scandinavia seems to be have an advantage."

Cerf said he had an "anthill theory of Internet evolution. For instance, there are millions of ants in a single location, but most of them spend most of their day performing rote tasks. Every day, however, at least one ant returns home with something really interesting."

Similarly, "People are always finding out new ways to use the network or extend access," he continued. "So we live in fear that every day someone has found a new way to use the Internet and we have to support it."

Timothy Wirth, who represented Colorado for 18 years in the Senate and House of Representatives, attended in his capacity as president of the United Nations Foundation, which is administering CNN chairman Ted Turner's recent bequest.

"In many places, the digital divide represents the classic story of the 'ins' trying to keep the 'outs' out," he said. "The countries that have the greatest need for connectivity have the least enlightened policies. I'm here to determine what the UN can do to enable interconnection, how we can apply political and economic pressure without interfering with the governments."