Cheri Tillman, founder and president of Tradeworks, an international trade services provider, talks about her hometown with an evangelistic fervor that Chamber of Commerce officials wish they could bottle and distribute. " I live in Albuquerque because I love New Mexico," she says, adding quickly and with emphasis: "I’m not going to move my business to any other area!"

Nevertheless, as owner of a company that structures and manages export transactions, Tillman also recognizes that "New Mexico is not the Mecca of international trade. "My clients have to come from other places," she says, "so I turned to the Internet."

To design her site, Cheri Tillman chose IBM’s Home Page Creator, a template-based quick, easy and cost-effective way to put your business on the web—including e-commerce components--without learning a web authoring language. She credits IBM with having played an important role in allowing her to create web pages that convey information "much more efficiently and accurately" than conventional corporate literature. "The web’s great," she says. "In fact, I don’t use paper materials at all any more, other than business cards. I tell interested companies ‘why don’t you look at my web site.’ And I try hard to provide valuable free information on the site."

Ms. Tillman is just one of a fast-growing legion of woman entrepreneurs who are "Winning on the Web." According to the National Foundation of Women Business Owners (NFWBO), 26% of the 9.1 million women-owned businesses in the U.S now have homepages (compared to 16% of men business owners). What is more, NFWBO reports that 17% of women business owners now cite business growth as is the most important reason for using new technology, compared to just 10% of men business owners.

To support the readiness of women entrepreneurs to leverage the power of technology for the advancement of their business, IBM has created a site called Women in Business. Joan Steltmann, Market Development Executive—Internet Strategies for IBM says the site aims to make technology choices a little easier and less threatening. "Our site is dedicated to improving the business and personal lives of women entrepreneurs and managers through technology by providing opportunities to build their knowledge in a wide range of areas, from e-commerce to software applications to specific hardware solutions."

Steltmann notes that the website addresses the most commonly asked how-to questions about technology and the Internet. Here’s just a small sampling of what you’ll find: