Who's connected? Companies that have their own website

Every day the last page of the Financial Times features Lex, a sort of quick–hitting briefing on various topics of interest related to the world of business.

Lex, in turn, has a feature called "Number in the News," which offers a graphic illustration of a trend or tendency indicative of underlying strengths and/or weaknesses in various countries.

Yesterday's was a bar graph (above) of European countries noting the percentage of companies (with 10 or more employees ) with their own website.

Here's the Financial Times legend for the graph:

Given the ubiquity of the internet, it is striking that a majority of large and medium-sized companies in some countries still do not have their own website.

OECD data, published today, shows that it is generally the Mediterranean and eastern European countries that lag behind their northern counterparts.

French and Portuguese companies in particular trail the European average.

Of particular note is the case of France, bringing up the rear.

Back in the day the French were at the leading edge of computerization and networking with their Minitel system.

It became obsolete with the rise of personal computers but the French, stuck with their huge investment, continued to pour money and resources into their legacy system until it began hemorrhaging so much money the plug finally had to be pulled.

As a result, France fell far behind and has simply never been able to catch up.

This bodes very poorly for its future in an all too interconnected world.

Argentina fell from its position as one of the wealthiest nations in the world at the dawn of the twentieth century to its current status as a Third–World economic basket case because of internal mismanagement and ill–starred leadership.

France also may find itself collapsing under the weight of, among other things, an ageing population and a lack of foresight.