I subjected myself to three exhibitions/conferences in London last week, two of stunning eye-glazing intensity and one of more interest. The first was the WorkPlace '99 exhibition which promised to bring visitors a vision of the workplace of the future.

Instead, what visitors saw were rows of ergonomic chairs, partitions, desks of various fashionable shapes, storage cabinets and more chairs. The salesmen were out in full force claiming their products made the workplace less of a grind and a more user-friendly environment. We've all heard these promises before and where are we? Still cloistered in our cubicles with our computers, or tossed out on the open floor plan, where we have to watch our colleagues pick their ears, or whatever.

About the only demonstration of interest was the Unwired booth. Unwired, the brand name of UK-based Cordless Consultants Ltd. (www.cordless.co.uk) is proclaiming the age of the wireless office. Philip Ross, the company's chief executive officer, demonstrated Lucent Technologies new Wavelan, a card which fits into a laptop and allows users to travel anywhere within an office building and stay connected to a company's network and the Internet without plugging in via the usual cords. The Wavelan connects at 11 megabytes per second, a big jump from the previous speed of three megabytes.

"It's just out this month,'' Mr. Ross said. "This is what we think will make the market take off.'' Cisco Systems and 3Com also have similar versions of the product either on the market or coming to market. The technology will allow employees to travel to a company's offices any where, be given the connecting card, and get right to work.

He also demonstrated an Internet phone system, which may send a dread shudder through those who have tried the technology and found it like speaking down a tin can. Cisco, however, seems to have solved the problem with the Selsius line. Cisco took over Selsius Systems, Inc., which developed the technology, last year.

The system uses a computer as a connection on every floor of an office as a switcher. The voice sounded good when I tried the phones, but I was only talking to Mr. Ross a few feet away so I couldn't really judge. Mr. Ross is however more enthusiastic.

"We will all be making all our phone calls over the Internet,'' he said. "In 18 months time it will all be perfect.'' Then I headed over to the Java '99 show, where programmers and Internet acolytes gathered to gain some knowledge of how the technology was evolving.

This was very technical, but I duly visited most of the booths just to get an idea of the purveyors of Java software applications. Java is the name of a computing language being used for running Web sites on the Internet and networking software. After sitting through the usual ra-ra sermon on what a wonderful thing the Internet is courtesy of Intel, I decided to skip a discussion on "Memory leaks in Java compared to C/C plus plus''.

I left the Kensington Olympia Hall and headed over to the Tax Efficient Commercial Structures for Electronic Business put on by Business Seminars International Ltd. (BSI) at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel.

About 70 people attended this gathering on the offshore world which went a lot further than a similar conference held September in New York by rival conference organiser IBC Group. This time nary a soul from Bermuda was present, and The Isle of Man, Ireland and Jersey dominated. The conference was held as a launching pad for new company www.lowtax.net, a subsidiary of BSI.

Michael Bell, founder of the company, said he was originally one of the five principals in IBC, which holds conferences in Bermuda and around the world.

IBC flourished and by 1989 had 90 million in revenue and 15 million in profits. But by the end of 1980 Mr. Bell got in a dispute with his colleagues and left to form BSI, which was focused on holding conferences in Eastern Europe and Russia. BSI, which Mr. Bell formed in partnership with the Adam Smith Institute, had 7 million in revenue at the company's peak.

"On the 14 August 1998 Russia destroyed our business with its debt default,'' Mr. Bell said. "We had to do something else. We had just been interested in offshore tax issues mainly with Cyprus. We came up with lowtax.net.'' Lowtax.net is the only operating subsidiary of BSI which at its peak had 130 employees and now has eight. The site provides information and news on offshore jurisdictions.

"We are an Internet startup and we are doing everything we should be doing -- but losing money,'' Mr. Bell said. He will be looking for a venture capital round of financing once the full site is up and running. It's half ready, he says.

"We are a publishing operation earning revenues from advertising,'' Mr. Bell said. "We hope to move on to offshore e-commerce services and provide a meeting place for partners for who we can market their offshore e-commerce businesses. We capture the client through our site and offer to be the marketing front, not only for pure e-commerce businesses but also for financial services such as offshore investment funds.'' His dream, which he admits currently sounds farfetched, is to create "cyberia'', a virtual offshore centre that only exists on the Internet.

Companies will then be without a physical jurisdiction for registration. He ruefully points out the domain name "cyberia.com'' is already taken, perhaps by a rival dreamer.

"This is more a gleam in the eye rather than reality,'' he said, then adds: "We might do that in association with another jurisdiction. Of all places that are most like a virtual jurisdictions, Bermuda fits the bill. It's the first place to launch legislation for virtual businesses.'' The next round in the game is IBC's offshore e-commerce conference in Miami in February. That's sold out.

Bermuda Stock Exchange chairman Arthur Sculley and chief executive officer William Woods have co-written B2B Exchanges: The Killer Application in the Business-to-Business Internet Revolution. According to Bermuda-based ISI Publications the two "make the startling claim that 'the Internet changes everything in B2B' and that most corporations will have to re-invent themselves over the next five years to remain competitive in the New Economy.'' The book is about how the Internet and other electronic communications networks (ECNs) are changing the way businesses buy and sell from each other.

The authors believe this is where the real money will be. The 272-page book will be available for US$27.50 and will be published next month. The book will also be available on Amazon.com, which incidentally is down due to technical problems this weekend.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin y hotmail.com or (01144)1273708386.