This is perhaps more true of the Internet than of any other technology.
Though the simplicity of the Web has made it an overnight success, the communications channel that proclaims itself to be the most interactive of all is, in fact, one of the worst. New research on the financial services industry in the UK has backed this up. The leading banks, building societies and insurance companies were approached, as if by a potential customer, via their Web sites in a survey conducted by Incisive Research. Overall, 25 per cent of companies failed to respond in any way to simple free-form inquiries, although the chances of getting a reply increased significantly when a form of more precise questions was included.Retail banks took an average of four days to respond, with the most surprising failure being that of a savings account query to Barclays, which did not reply at all. A recent survey of the financial services industry found many banks and building societies are failing to respond to e-mail inquires. How can businesses learn to communicate through their corporate Web sites? Mark Vernon looks at some potential solutions to the problem.

It is an irony that modern information technology often becomes a victim of its own success. No sooner does a new gizmo come online, than expectations are raised once again, rendering the current technology apparently ineffective. They’ve been redesigned for ease of access to components, and their internal handles simplify opening. All the new machines use a common motherboard, which should help Apple meet demand better than it usually does..

“For a small developer like us, it opens up the market for very little cost,” he says. At the Expo, Softpress launched probably the easiest Web-creation tool yet. Freeway allows users to create sophisticated Web pages without needing to know HTML. A 30-day trial version can be downloaded from www.softpress .Be showed the latest version of its operating system, which some users wish Apple had chosen instead of buying NeXT. Although BeOS won’t be finished until next Spring, when it will also be available for Intel PCs, the new pre-release version 2 seems fast and stable, with an improved interface and better multi-tasking.

It can now write as well as read Mac and DOS disks, but it still has a lot to do. However, as PowerPC users could run both the Mac and BeOS on one hard disk, it may prove useful for graphics applications or the Web.Apple launches a range of machines today based on the new G3 PowerPC processor, which it claims “is approximately 30 per cent faster than the Pentium II chip.” It is also usable for notebook computers, unlike the Pentium II which uses too much power. The systems are aimed at multimedia and web production markets, featuring increased internal bus speed (to 66 MHz) and with OS8 installed. The move to Rhapsody should be relatively simple for most developers, thanks to CodeWarrior Latitude, which automatically translates applications from the Mac to various Unix systems.Metrowerks also has a new version (CodeWarrior Professional release 2) of its Mac-to-Windows application, which makes it far easier for developers to create versions for both systems, although they will have to redesign the user interface for each version.Rhapsody should simplify cross-platform development, as it will run on Intel machines.

This is the main attraction for Yonadev Yuval, technical director of Oxford-based Softpress Systems. “Considering the time they’ve had, it’s remarkable how quickly it’s progressed,” says Kevin McLellan, senior developer at P&L Systems, which aims to have the first Rhapsody spreadsheet, Mesa, on the market. It copes with graphics and moving images, and when linked to the new Claris HomePage 3.0 (out in January) Web sites can automatically be updated as the database is changed. It can also convert Excel files to full databases in a single click, which Microsoft Access can’t do.Its new ClarisWorks Office is a slimline competitor for Microsoft Office, which it now resembles, with chunkier toolbars and a very Word-like text ruler.