Cisco chief executive John Chambers has scoffed at current analysts forecasts for the electronic commerce business, both now and in a few years time. He said most analysts estimate anything between $20bn and $300bn by 2000. But it will be more like five times that much (up to $1.5 trillion), says Chambers, who is probably right considering that Cisco alone is currently on a run rate of $3.2bn revenues from its web site, representing 39% of its total revenues and rising at a 10% per month growth rate at present. We will become a virtual company over the next year, he said. The company only started selling over the web in August 1996 so just think of what happens when the car companies get their act together by selling cars over the internet, he said. Chambers pointed out that cars, like books and toys, are the ideal commodity to be sold over the net. Prospective buyers know what they want in advance and don’t want to waste hours being convinced otherwise as is often the case with car dealers, he said. Meanwhile, Chambers said the only area that he feels the company is not doing nearly as well as it should be is network management, but wouldn’t go into details on how that will be resolved, but doubtless he has a plan.