While two more billion-dollar IT deals are in the offing overseas, the announcement of the termination of the ATIO/Unihold deal after the market closed on Friday has the local IT industry talking.

When thinking about business in the future, identifying the work that involves physical atoms and that which involves digital bits will allow you to highlight fundamental business basics, such as relationship marketing.

The assumption that Internet audiences prefer niche information aimed at small interest groups is causing the proliferation of niche publishing at the expense of general news.

While Dimension Data's UK acquisition caused some waves last week, there were also two extremely interesting cautionary notices which point to more possible shake-ups in the IT industry playing field.

Faith Popcorn is hailed as the foremost trend-spotter of the past few decades. With her focus clearly on consumer trends, it is certain that there are an increasing number of consumer trends driving both e-business and relationship marketing.

Time to market is always of the essence, and corporate buyers are realising that a bit of customisation can go a long way towards keeping the momentum, while ground-up development often kills an intranet effort before it can take off. Enter the 'intranet in a box' concept.

Predictions indicate that come year 2000, most African countries and parts of Asia will be affected by disruptions in vital telecommunications services. This could prove disastrous for fragile economies.

The $4.5 billion GeoCities/Yahoo! acquisition puts the combined entity firmly at the top of the Internet access tree, ahead of AOL. The deal also puts considerable pressure on other players like Lycos and Infoseek.

The Internet promises shrewd entrepreneurs ideal opportunities to make a quick fortune, luring investors into pouring vast amounts of money into risky ventures. And there is no doubt that many will make a profit as the sheer increase in Internet users pushes them into the magic zone.

Continuing ERP woes dominated the international IT world last week, with the Connection Group management shake-up receiving high visibility in the local press.

In sport and business, teamwork is a necessity. But building a winning team takes a concerted effort and an ideal combination of trust, talent, discipline and understanding the rules of the game.

It's been about a year since we first started hearing the word "portal" in an Internet context. And although the Internet is still debating the exact meaning of a portal, the technical industry term is starting to gain popular acceptance.

Internet appliances are set to take the world by storm, heralding a new era of Web access and application during which Internet access will become more mobile and user-friendly. But how will these devices impact our daily lives and the fledgling e-commerce market?