It's a much more attractive market than the U.S. -- the growth of Internet commerce is less mature and Europeans love to travel. They have more vacation time.

With the growth of the Internet and the use of e-commerce, you're going to get more and more of these situations.

In assessing the growth of the Internet, and e-commerce in particular, many marketers, as well as many analysts, tend to overlook Germany, often merely lumping it together with the rest of the E-5 countries or Western Europe as a whole. That's a mistake. Germany is the third-largest economy in the world, right behind the US and Japan, and what happens there — and when and why it happens — is vitally important to the growth of the Internet's infrastructure and economy.

In assessing the growth of the Internet, and e-commerce in particular, many marketers, as well as many analysts, tend to overlook Germany, often merely lumping it together with the rest of the E-5 countries or Western Europe as a whole. That's a mistake. Germany is the third-largest economy in the world, right behind the US and Japan, and what happens there — and when and why it happens — is vitally important to the growth of the Internet's infrastructure and economy.

Our database revenue growth accelerated as Oracle has become the database of choice for Internet commerce. Nine of the top 10 business-to-business e-commerce Web sites use the Oracle database.

[While the U.S. president has an e-mail address and favors preventing taxation of Internet commerce, the U.S. government has, in fact, hurt the industry by imposing] brain-dead legislation on privacy and the export of encryption, ... And outside of the U.S., I worry about taxation [of Internet commerce]. It's logical to assume that governments will want a piece of the action.