French spend more on Internet services than hardware

The latest report from US-based consultancy Market Access has found that French companies will spend two thirds of their 1998 Internet budgets on services rather than equipment.

According to Martha Bennet, European Giga Information Group's vice president, this shows that companies "realise that the technology comes first" in good Internet strategy.

"French companies are playing catch up in the Internet stakes and have been able to learn from other companies' mistakes," she explained. In the early days of ecommerce, companies wastefully threw money into technology and then obtained consultancy from service companies to organise their strategy, according to Bennet.

The French were behind for two reasons: language barriers and Minitel - a popular alternative to the Internet that has been around for years.

Market Access also reports that overall spending by French businesses is set to grow from $4.5bn in 1998 to $13bn in 2000.

Forty large and medium sized companies mainly from the banking, food-distributing and media sectors were surveyed for the report. The services spending includes establishing Web sites, newsletters and online catalogues.