The 1999 edition of the Internet World Australia Pacific 99 event has opened in Sydney with a large increase in the number of delegates attending the conference.
Steve Sind, vice president of trade show development at Penton Media, which organises the event in association with Sydney-based Kirby Network
Services, said 15,000 people would attend the exhibition, up from 12,000 at the 1998 show, and the number of delegates to the conferences and forums was almost doubled.
The Federal Minister for Communications, the Information Economy and the
Arts, Senator Richard Alston, opened the exhibition as he did two years
ago, saying that the Internet had progressed since that time from being a peripheral technology to being a part of everyday life.
“We now have to think of the Internet as a business issue, not a technology issue,” Senator Alston said. “It’s not something where a decision can be made down the line, the message has to come from the boardroom. It’s a matter of it coming from CEOs.”
Steve Waugh, the captain of the World Cup-winning Australian cricket team, was at the show to announce that he had licensed the online rights to his photographs taken during Australia’s win in the World Cup to Photohighway.com, which also had a stand at the exhibition.
Conference highlights during the day included the launch of Net Traveller, the new book written by industry veteran Tom Worthington, at the Government Online stream, plus all-day streams for e-commerce, Web marketing and the travel industry.
