Information technology gap widens between Europe and USA
New data from the European IT Observatory (EITO 1999) shows a substantial gap between Europe and the USA in the key investments that will drive prosperity over future decades, according to European Telework Development (ETD). Western Europe has 55 business PCs for every 100 white-collar workers, while the USA has 105. Consumer investment shows an even larger gap -every 100 people in Europe have just 19 PCs, as against 47 in the USA. Additionally, the published data shows that the gap is widening rather than narrowing. While the USA now invests more than 4.5% of its gross domestic product in IT, Europe spends less than 2.5%. Europe's per capita GDP is already behind that of the USA - in real money terms the USA is spending more than 1000 euro on IT per head of the population, while Europe spends less than 500. According to ETD, these figures represents a long-term trend which shows no signs of changing despite considerable media attention on the Information Society, especially the Internet, in the past two years. ETD is a three-year programme financed by the European Commission and now working through websites in 28 countries across Europe and beyond. EITO is the established yearbook reporting trends in information and communication technology.