Talk to a CIO about a business Internet service provider, and Internet Solutions and UUNet will be top-of-mind. Mention ISPs to dial-up home users, and you`ll most likely get M-Web as the number one choice. But this isn`t stopping M-Web from taking the game to the enterprise players.

Most were surprised to see M-Web tender for – and win – Pick `n Pay`s online shopping portal. Although the company had done various storefronts under its “M-Web Mall” banner, Pick `n Pay required a very high level of back-end integration into the stock system. Pick `n Pay also opted for a distributed model, as opposed to Woolworths` overly ambitious centralised system.

M-Web needs such business contracts, as it is stuck between a rock and a hard place in its dial-up subscription service. It says that it is covering its costs on the dial-up infrastructure side.