Currently only a small portion of our lives flow through these webs, but as cyberspace subsumes televisionspace and phonespace and much of retailspace, the influence of standards upon social behavior will grow.

Yet impatient with access to the home computer only, in the US it has been the market lure of moving from cyberspace to what Microsoft calls "televisionspace" that has set off what one analyst described as "a titanic battle for the nation's living rooms".

Check the arithmetic: PCs are holding steady in fewer than 40 percent of American homes. Only 20 million homes have PCs with modems. Some 68 million have cable television. For Bill Gates, cyberspace isn't where the action is. To maintain its phenomenal growth, Microsoft needs to be in the market its people call "televisionspace."