Bermuda is becoming increasingly popular as the idyllic place for companies to host their online presence.  Although the island is traditionally home to offshore insurance, reinsurance and finance houses, the trend of e-locating in Bermuda is now gaining wider currency with companies from other industry sectors - some who are by nature polar opposites to the former.

Drawn & Quartered.com Ltd. http://www.drawnandquartered.com is one such case in point, run by its Chairman and CEO Dr. Robert Edwards - better known by his cartoonist nom-de-guerre " Red".  Edwards is one of the new breed of entrepreneurs looking to establish both a strong image and lasting presence over the internet.  His company has produced an extensive and diverse online catalogue of images, created by a growing international group of award-winning editorial news cartoonists and caricaturists.  The collection includes images that can be used for every conceivable purpose, with online commissions welcomed for original artwork. The website provides an eclectic mix of topical cartoons, creative caricatures, and pithy literary quotations. Perhaps more importantly, it also offers a refreshing - and all-too-rare - contrast to those traditionally bland and boring corporate sites that monopolise the online experience.

So why did Drawn & Quartered select Bermuda as its online home?  "It is an island out to prove itself, and I for one have been impressed by its reputation, hard work, and track record", says Edwards.  "Cartoonists have always looked far and wide for creative inspiration, and now Bermuda provides superb sanctuary for their world-view."  The combination of a government actively promoting e-commerce, a wealth of web-savvy people, skills, and know-how, a fostered entrepreneurial spirit, and a host of local companies all switched onto the wired world have all certainly helped. The Bermuda International Business Association (BIBA) provided clear advice on how Edwards should proceed. The incorporation of the company was effectively completed online with law firm Appleby Spurling & Kemp. The CCS Group then provided the technical wherewithal in putting the website together, configuring the web server for the site now hosted at Northrock, one of Bermuda's Internet Service Providers.  "It was refreshing to work with an individual with a very different slant on the way the web should work", says Tom Quinn , who heads up the Professional Services Division for CCS, "Drawn & Quartered challenged us to produce an innovative but irreverent website which could cope with a large number of images and still be fast loading and easy to navigate.  I hope that we achieved that goal:.

"I am absolutely delighted with the results so far - as are so many others", adds Edwards.  The site has been accepted and mirrored by Tribune Company-Knight Ridder's Newscom.com - the leading international directory for graphic news content providers - and now shares equal billing with Reuters, Dow Jones, AP, and Agence Presse, among others.  It is ironic, however, that due to the ease of his online Bermuda experience, Edwards has yet to physically visit the island.  But that is all set to change, as he will be a guest speaker and cartoonist-in-residence at the forthcoming e-commerce conference (eCC) in October.  What expectations does Edwards - a Canadian used to snow, ice, and now English rain - hold for his impending trip? "Sun, sand, surf, and soliloquy", comes the answer.

From that we may conclude that Bermuda has helped Drawn & Quartered to draw the perfect picture.

Related links:

http://www.drawnandquartered.com
http://www.ccs.bm
http://www.justaskinc.bm
http://www.northrock.bm
http://www.newscom.com
http://www.eccbermuda.com/