Bermuda's overwhelming dominance at the recently completed electronic commerce conference in New York has set the standard for other offshore jurisdictions looking to get into the business.

But those in attendance warn that the Island will have to redouble its efforts if it hopes to stay ahead of the competition.

Logic Communications chief executive Peter Durhager noted that those in attendance were mainly representatives of offshore service providers and government officials from other competing islands.

About 35 representatives from Bermuda attended the Offshore E-Commerce Conference in New York. Among those in attendance were representatives from the British Virgin Islands, Curacao, part of the Netherland Antilles, Cayman Islands, Jersey, and the Isle of Man.

"Bermuda has now laid down the gauntlet,'' Mr. Durhager said. "The conference highlighted the sense of urgency that they need to come after us.

They now feel that they are behind the curve. We should recognise that there is going to be an awful lot of leapfrogging. We had better be prepared to put services, resources and money behind our efforts. What we have to have is real companies with real transactions and real results as fast as possible.'' Bennet Smith, British Virgin Islands' acting Permanent Secretary for the Office of the Chief Minister, said he came especially to learn about Bermuda's efforts in promoting itself as an e-commerce jurisdiction.

The British Virgin Island is going to launch such an effort, which is in its infancy, he said.

"I think we need to do certain things to get going,'' Mr. Bennet said. "We are keen. Clearly Bermuda has done something right. Anything that has been done right, we look at.'' Mr. Durhager noted the lack of potential customers at the conference and the many start-up companies vying for a piece of the action. Mr. Durhager is in the process of starting up service provider Coral Capital Ltd. with partner Juan Prado, Jr. He believes there will be a shakeout as business models fail.

Warning against complacency "There are going to be a lot of dead bodies in the water,'' he said. "There are a lot of people making a lot of noise. We are trying to find where that beef is going to be.'' Consultant William Storie said Bermuda's marketing effort, while commendable, still missed the mark. Echoing comments from a New York consultant who told delegates that many businesses didn't go offshore because of confusion and a lack of knowledge, Mr. Storie said Bermuda needs to formulate a national policy.

"I don't care what anybody says, we don't have a national strategy, and we need one of some description,'' Mr. Storie said. "Ireland, Denmark, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia have all set out a national strategy. It's a three month exercise which will outline the process for businesses. Then we can sing off the same hymn sheet at conferences like these. Currently the coordination is not there.'' Arthur Sculley, partner of private investment services firm Sculley Brothers and chairman of the Bermuda Stock Exchange, said the conference seemed to be focused on business-to-consumer e-commerce. The real volumes are in the business-to-business electronic commerce, studies show, he said.

About 85 percent of e-commerce, or $45 billion, was done between businesses, the rest is selling to the consumer in 1998 according to a study by Forrester Research.

"Having passed the Electronic Transactions Act, a place like Bermuda has created a big opportunity to attract corporations which want to do global purchasing and selling from a neutral platform. It is not there yet but we are going to see explosive growth in business-to-business e-commerce.'' BUSINESS BUC