I read with interest the article in the July issue of your magazine "Welcome to the Webtop".  I work abroad, but try and keep up-to-date on computer issues when I am home on holiday which I have been for the past few weeks.

I work for a large international NGO and we rely on computers, notably email to keep in touch across the world.  However, I would like to point out two issues which came to mind whilst I was reading the article.

1. Web 2.0 will require high-speed internet access to work properly and enable users to access web-based applications.  This is fine in the West where we have good connections, but in most countries of the world, this is not the case except for a small elite.  New technology has great potential to bridge the gap between the rich and poor (eg mobile phones), but ideas which rely on something most people to not have are unlikely to do this. If Office 2007 is the last version on CD how will people without broadband connections be able to access it in the future?

2. Storing documents on the web on a remote server may be great to enable easy access, but again what happens if you don't have a broadband connection to access them?  In many parts of the world this would simply be to risky as you may find you can't always access your documents.  I currently back up on an external hard-drive and have no intention of storing my documents on the web as there would be privacy issues involved.  It would also be interesting to know what would happen to your data should the company storing it collapse?

While I am aware that these issues are probably not of concern to the majority of your readers I do know that your magazine reaches airports in Africa (notably Nairobi) and will be read by many people.  Perhaps in a future issue you could include an article on computing in an African country to give readers an idea of IT in different contexts.

Duncan Barker