Addressing the assembled delegates at this week's European e-learning seminar in Dublin, industry expert Mr Elliott Masie said the e-learning industry needed to look harder at localising its courses into multiple languages, and speeding up the introduction of video and audio learning in real time.

"Until content is available in the native language, your e-learning programme won't take off in that country. Traditionally all learning has been verbal - visual text-based learning is not a natural way to learn. This has to change," Mr Masie said.

He said the biggest growth opportunity for e-learning would be through integration with e-business.

"The opportunity for customer e-learning is 100 times greater than employee e-learning. The number one reason people return to e-commerce sites is to learn something new. The biggest growth area for e-learning is through integration with e-business."

Mr Masie said retailers Eddie Bauer and L L Bean in the US had already invested up to $20 million building e-learning into their sites, and Walt Disney's new website would carry an e-learning support feature on every page.

He added a key driving factor for e-learning will increasingly be the ability to turn out company-wide products on demand.

He cited the case of Time Warner when it failed to prepare its customer service unit for details of its merger with AOL. Customer service agents were swamped with queries about subscriptions but had not been given details of the arrangement.

"Organisations want to have e-learning structures in place to educate everyone about what to do the minute a move is made," Mr Masie said.

However, location and culture should not be written off for company-wide e-learning implementations, he added.

"In some countries if you don't get sent somewhere to learn it is not viewed as a reward," says Mr Masie, president of the Masie Center in the US

"The highest probability an employee will attend a training course is if they are located in the company headquarters. The further away an employee is located from head office the, less likely it is they will receive training."

Despite all the hype surrounding computer-based training, most employees don't want to take a learning programme at their desks. Research conducted by the Masie Center among 2,474 learning and training professionals found up to 53 per cent would choose to take part in an e-learning activity in a conference room, learning cubicle or at home, instead of at their desktops.

Half said learning at the desktop was "distracting", but the same number also said they would be happy to schedule the process during normal working hours.