Mark and Maggie continue their walk to the Post Office.Mark decides to give Maggie some insight into the developments of the internet,intranet and e-mail in his own country and culture.

Mark: I can't remember if I told or not,but I'm from France.

Maggie: Really? You hardly have an accent.

Mark: Anyway ,I'd like to explain a little about the historcial development of e-mail in Europe,actually in France.Now you see we in France do have our own system to support electronic correspondence .It's called an intranet.

Maggie: Isn't that what used in Net-works within companies and stuff.

Mark: Something like that .Well ,France came up with this computer network the intranet-before the introduction of the internet.

Maggie: Intranet.I think I've heard of that ...

Mark: It was very popular and a very exciting technological advance.

Maggie:Wait,Isn't that what companies use to keep their employees connected.

Mark: Yeah,That's one kind of intranet.

Maggie: But on the intranet you can only send messages to people who share your same network.It's like a big club.

Mark: Exactly and that was the problem with the intranet in France...But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Maggie: Sorry,I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Mark: Like I was saying it was very popular and very advanced but it was limited in its range.

Maggie: That's when the internet came along.

Mark: Right ,It was introduced in France some time after the intranet had been adopted by quite a few people.However it was slightly more appealing because it was not limited in range to France.

Maggie: Did the internet really pose much of a threat to the intranet?

Mark: Yes and no.It wasn't too successful because people were already used to the intranet and it was not too convenient to get everyone to swith.However,it's competitive advantage came from the fact that it's scope was much larger and this larger and this was a huge advantage in eyes of a younger generation.

Maggie: Fascinating ,So that's why the internet is not so widely used in France.

Mark: In part....and in my opinion ,it's going to take some time to make the shift.Hey look there's the Post Office.

Maggie: Thanks,It's really decent of you.