The Internet has done much for eliminating the issue of distance and geography, and we can use it to extend our business to most anywhere in the world. How can we best maximize the implications of the globalization of business by harnessing the power of the Internet?

As you start using the Web to present your company's products or services, your analysis needs to keep in mind two factors:

   which countries you already sell to

   which countries are sufficiently online to attract clients

If your company does not have much experience in international sales, then you might as well target the markets with the highest concentration of online population:

   Japan (20 million) and

   Germany (12 million).

As of the end of 1999, there were approximately:

   13 million Spanish-speakers (U.S. Hispanic, Spain, and Latin America),

   10 million Chinese,

   10 million French-speakers (Quebec, France, Switzerland and Belgium),

   4.4 million Dutch-speakers

   4 million Brazilians (Portuguese language).

What are the most popular languages on the Internet?
What do you think will be the languages that will be more common on the Internet in the near future?

: Besides English, which will represent less than half of the entire world's online population by 2000, there are 15 languages with over a million people online. As of latest count, Spanish, German and Japanese all have around 14 million people online, followed by French (7.2 million), Chinese (6.4 million), Scandinavians (6.1 million) and Dutch (4.2 million). By the end of 2000, Spanish, German, French and Japanese should each increase to 25-30 million people online, and Italian to 10-13 million.