Nearly 90% of France’s small- and medium-sized companies are equipped with personal computers, and over half are networked, says an annual study published recently by UFB-Locabail. If only 7% of the total sample of companies with between six and 200 employees are connected to the Internet, the percentage doubles for companies with more than 50 employees. Graphic arts companies and organizations in the Paris region and the north are more likely to be Internet-ed than others. The small and medium sized company prefers Toshiba portables for surfing cyberspace, followed by Hewlett-Packard Co’s personal computers, Macintosh, Compaq Computer Corp and IBM Corp. While 55% of the sample’s personal computers are networked, another 28% are equipped with a modem. Modems are used predominantly for Minitel emulation (27%) and faxing (20%). The study predicts that the rate of personal computer penetration in small and medium sized French companies should hit 91% by year end, thanks in part to the government’s decision to reduce to 24 months the time needed to write off investment in personal computers and multimedia services.
