A local IT company is reporting a shift in e-business. Paragon said business from "tech start-ups" and dot.com ventures is giving way to web solutions for bricks-and-mortar companies or ventures serving established industries.

Paragon president Graham Pearson said his company's core business has seen a move over the last 12 to 18 months.

"Companies are looking more at core business, and less at the marketing capabilities of e-business," he said.

Mr. Pearson cited new e-business ventures being set up to service the insurance industry as an example. He said companies were being started by insurance executives in a push to capitalise on technology for "faster, smarter, better ways of doing business".

Mr. Pearson said that although business has shifted in terms of what types of businesses are engaging emerging web platforms, he said there is still an "accelerated use of technology".

"The word to emphasise is existing - the demand is from existing business," he said.

Mr. Pearson also pointed to the insurance industry's "strong acquisition binge" and how that is also creating a demand for more traditional E-business.

By way of example, Mr. Pearson said during an acquisition, companies may find incompatabilities where one company may be using Outlook Express, while the newly acquired entity may be using Lotus Notes. In order to facilitate the movement of information, Mr. Pearson said companies may employ portals and web-based systems to integrate differing mail and back-end systems.

Paragon Managing Director Glenn Henderson said the company had also seen a similar trend from the financial services industry. "We have definitely seen a shift with the evolution and marriage of financial services with technology," he said.

Mr. Henderson said that was where Paragon came in, to help various sectors move into or further explore the e-business space.

Both Mr. Pearson and Mr. Henderson spoke of the increasing demand for efficient movement of documents and document management. This includes the demand for replication of information in multiple sites and across the board synchronisation of that information.

Paragon has seen an even greater surge in document management demand in the wake of the September 11 attacks. This has come, Mr. Pearson said, from two areas: companies impacted by the attack have sought "disaster recovery" services, and other companies want to ensure they are not risk-prone, going forward.

"Money is not an issue for that, budgets are not being constrained and shareholders expect these measures to be put in place," Mr. Pearson said.

To this end, Mr. Pearson said companies were exploring whether or not they should risk a paper trail, or move to digital information replicated in several locations.

Mr. Pearson said that moving towards digital management of documents made sense: "Think of the Anthrax scare...with sending mail through the post, you now have to think of the possibility that mail will be held up. Keep it electronic, without having a hard copy at all," he said.

Mr. Pearson said Paragon was able to help clients move in this direction with their subsidiary Ignition; a managed service provider (MSP) with a secure data centre.

Mr. Pearson said: "Clients can access Ignition's secure electronic space for the movement of documents, including an audit trail of who has been in to the system, and what changes have been made."

Clients can also bypass the need for penned signatures. Mr. Pearson said, in partnership with local company Quo Vadis, digital certificates can be issued for documents. These "digital signatures", are said to count as a legal signature under Bermuda's Electronic Transactions Act 1999.

Quo Vadis is an E-Venture Centre (EVC) company. EVC is a business accelerator, and a joint venture of Centre Solutions and Paragon.