Alibaba.com founder Jack Ma (right) is living proof that you do not have to be a computer whizz to set up a highly successful e-business Web site. In fact, the mainland entrepreneur says that being computer illiterate has actually contributed to his success rather than detracted from it.

"Till now my computer knowledge is I can only send and receive e-mail, and browse. So my tech team and I never argue," he said. "But I am the quality controller. No matter what program they make, I am the last person to use it and if I say I cannot use it then 90 per cent of people who visit our site cannot use it."

It is by sticking to this "dumb click" philosophy -- which enables even those with virtually zero Internet experience to find what they seek -- that has contributed to Alibaba.com's success, Mr Ma said at the Chamber's roundtable luncheon on Jan. 19.

And it was a dumb search which hooked Mr Ma on e-business. One of his friends -- a pioneer of the Internet in the U.S. -- suggested he do a search to see what he could find to get a feel for the Internet and to discover its potential.

"At that time (1995) Yahoo, Web Crawler and Lycos were all very small, but I typed in one word, beer," he said. "I don't know why I typed in beer, but I saw there was a beer manufacturer from Germany and one from the USA, but there was no beer manufacturer from China."

His curiosity led him to search for information on China in the then desolate China cyberspace and came up with limited results.

As an experiment, he asked his friend to help him make a home page. The site said a translation agency in Hangzhou, with 18 employees, translates 17 different languages at such a price, and listed contact details.

"Within three hours I got five e-mails back; three from the U.S., one from Japan and one from Germany," he said. "They tried to contact me to find out more about my company and I was amazed. I thought this could change the world."

Going against the advice of his family and friends, Mr Ma went with his gut feeling and embarked into the brave, new world of e-commerce with just US$2,000. He established Alibaba.com in February 1999 and hasn't looked back since.

With about five years' experience under his belt, he urges caution before jumping into the world of e-commerce.

"E-commerce has just started, but my understanding of e-business is that it should be like fishing -- very easy."

He likens a successful Web site to operating a TV. You buy a television set, bring it back home, plug it in and away you go.

He also believes that the foundation on which e-business has been built upon in the West does not hold true for Asian e-commerce, because the business-to-consumer (B-to-C) model does not work very well in Asia, especially in China.

"When people do business in the West they think, 'that is a good guy,' and if you make a bad deal they say, 'is something wrong?' But in China, the first impression is, 'that is a bad guy.' When you do something good then you prove you are a good guy," he said.

The lack of trust, as well as a dislike for mail order, will limit the growth for B-to-C e-business in Asia, he predicts.

But the future of business-to-business (B-to-B) e-commerce in Asia has a rosy future, he predicts. "I think because Asia is the main supply chain of the world, and 85 per cent of the businesses in the region are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), it would be a good thing for Asia to develop B-to-B markets," he said.

His market research has also shown that unlike many Western Internet users who are willing to pay for Internet services, Asian companies want everything to be free and easy to use.