l accident, practical necessity, or
political privilege, happen to know English, is unfair to those who
don't.

5. <Electronic commerce.> Although a multilingual web may be desirable
on moral and ethical grounds, such high ideals are not enough to make
it other than a reality on a small-scale. As well as the appropriate
technology being available so that the non-English speaker can go,
there is the impact of 'electronic commerce' as a major force that may
make multilingualism the most natural path for cyberspace. Sellers of
products and services in the virtual global marketplace into which the
internet is developing must be prepared to deal with a virtual world
that is just as multilingual as the physical world. If they want to be
successful, they had better make sure they are speaking the languages
of their customers!"

How about the future of the WorldWide Language Institute? "As a company
that derives its very existence from the importance attached to
languages, I believe the future will be an exciting and challenging
one. But it will be impossible to be complacent about our successes and
accomplishments. Technology is already changing at a frenetic pace.
Lifelong learning is a strategy that we all must use if we are to stay
ahead and be competitive. This is a difficult enough task in an
English-speaking environment. If we add in the complexities of
interacting in a multilingual/multicultural cyberspace, then the task
becomes even more demanding. As well as competition, there is also the
necessity for cooperation -- perhaps more so than ever before. The
seeds of cooperation across the internet have certainly already been
sown. Our NetGlos Project has depended on the goodwill of volunteer
translators from Canada, U.S., Austria, Norway, Belgium, Israel,
Portugal, Russia, Greece, Brazil, New Zealand and other countries. I
think the hundreds of visitors we get coming to the NetGlos pages
everyday is an excellent testimony to the success of these types of
working relationships. I see the future depending even more on
cooperative relationships -- although not necessarily on a volunteer
basis."

= Logos

Logos is a global translation company with headquarters in Modena,
Italy. In 1997, Logos had 200 in-house translators in Modena and 2,500
free-lance translators worldwide, who processed around 200 texts per
day. The company made a bold move, and decided to put on the web the
linguistic tools used by its translators,