Main Highway was founded two years ago by a group of business professionals and technical specialists. We asked ourselves the question - what use is the internet to a business?

Our first reaction - it was early days - was that it seemed to be offering not much more than a chance to have an electronic brochure on the world wide web. Yes, we knew about "disintermediation", "e-shopping", "e-working" and so on but if you are sitting running a business these things are just words.

Each time we looked at what they might mean in reality we saw only more costs and no revenue, particularly for small businesses who simply do not have cash to spare to play at internet games.

The froth that accompanied the "dot com" boom and its subsequent retrenchment did not surprise us. It reflected, for us, a reality that the internet certainly offers something, but business in general has not yet become convinced about what that something is or its value to their bottom line.

Ploughing onwards, we began to learn about "communities" and "markets" and Main Highway Services emerged as a solution provider with technological tools to create communities and markets. You can find out more about this at www.mainhighway.com - our services site.

We began to build alliances and plug our technology into various organisations, learning how to make a connected community operate. At the same time we kept our eye on the real challenge, how do we make all this work for commercially minded business, to achieve the migration to "connected company working" that we all know makes sense - if everyone is singing to the same tune.

That gave us an idea, counter-intuitive maybe, but the only practical way we could see of evolving solutions that actually work commercially for business. Looking backwards we are skillful, experienced and capable at creating and implementing solutions, but looking forwards, we haven't got a clue; we don't know what businesses are trying to do, could do, and crucially, might do profitably. (That's not to say we don't have the PhD's and the commercial acumen and training to postulate and plan, we are very good at that, but we're talking about being in the ditch here with a shovel as producers of connected companies.)

The conclusion: we have got to invent the future with business, provide them with the connected roadway and theme park technology to allow them to work with us to build a future on the internet. This is what Main Highway is about. Our services (dot com) provide the solutions and technology, our extranet (dot net) is the vanguard of sapper engineers pushing into the commercial future.

The extranet portal is divided into quick services, information areas and channels. We are developing all three themes at the same time, working with partners and colleagues ranging from single traders through small companies to large corporations and public entities. As is often said, the internet changes everything and we're making that change happen.

All building sites are messy and ours is no exception. Inside the buildings and on the roadways there are people digging and hammering, producing a finished product element by element. Our site here is a large building site in which certain parts are complete, others are underway and others have hardly begun. We want you to see what we are doing, so that you can have ideas with us and perhaps become a member of our corps of pioneers. Register with us and we will keep you informed. Your organisation will also become a member of Main Highway - a traveller with us to the connected future with a user i/d and password that can be used across all our communities. We already have places that, as a member, you can get easy access and discount prices.

We want to hear from anyone who would like to work as a supplier or content partner or just be supported in building a channel or service through us. Contact us now!