"Already, 13m people have access to the Internet in Britain - higher than any other major European economy. E-commerce revenues in this country are expected to reach £10bn next year - up threefold on last year. You can buy flights, books, check into a hotel, trade cars and plan your wedding on the Internet. And all of these services are available in the UK thanks to Internet entrepreneurs who have created companies in the last few years.

I met two of them this morning. Their stories say more than any statistics about how fast the pace of change is.

Take Zeus. 4 years ago, the founders, Adam Twiss and Damien Reeves, were students here. They decided to set up a company to provide software for webservers. Zeus has been profitable since it was founded and sales are currently growing at 75% per quarter. Only Netscape and Microsoft are bigger in their market. And they told me this morning that following their new alliance with Hewlett Packard, they've every intention of becoming the market leader!

Or Cambridge Advanced Electronics. Two years ago, they were a conventional company. Now they don't have any premises or full-time employees. But they have generated $2 million extra business. How? They became a virtual company - thanks to investment in a network that lets employees work from home. There is the same pay rate for all workers. They bid over the Internet to do each piece of work that comes up. And salaries are up between a third and a half."

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