Good morning.

When I first talked to you in 1998, many companies were wondering why they should even bother with the internet. Boy, how the world has changed.

And IBM has changed right along with it.

In 1994, our brand was ranked #283 in the world. Today, we're #3. And we're not going
to stop there.

We'll get to #1. And when we do get to #1, one of the reasons will be e-business.

We created the category of e-business in 1997. And today we own it. Our e-business mindshare is five times greater than our nearest competitor. And that mindshare translates into many
more customers than ever before who are considering IBM when they're selecting an
e-business partner.

At the end of 1998, 55% of the companies that were engaged in e-business said they would consider IBM as a primary e-business provider. A year later, that number is 73%.

Now everyone's trying to jump on the lucrative e-business bandwagon. Spending on IT advertising alone is projected to be up by nearly 25% in 1999. And that's on top of a 21% rise the previous year.

Our competitors are peddling: e-services, eEconomy, e-infostructure, non-stop e-business, "solutions vision," "digital economy." And Sun says that it put "the dot in dot-com" -- so whenever you need to buy some dots, you'll know right where to go.

And it's not just the usual suspects, either, like HP and Oracle. We're facing a host of dot-coms and other companies we haven't traditionally competed against.

It's a cluttered environment, but we're going to continue to differentiate ourselves from the "e-clones." While the rest of the market is trying to position themselves in the space we created yesterday, we're going to be moving along, leading the way once again.We're taking the e-business conversation to the next level. Educating the market about the changing needs of e-business today. And tomorrow.

Welcome to "Phase 2" -- the next generation of e-business.