The giant's lack of speed allowed them the tremendous advantage of standing on the sidelines until after the dot com crash of the Spring of 2000, watching which businesses burned to a crisp and which were left standing. That is another way of saying that they not only have physcial assets, like a plant and buildings which have a worth independent of their business, but they also know what they're doing. Conservative businessmen and somber accountants are approaching the serious business issues of their web sites. Software now gives businesses the ability to know a customer more intimately, respond more rapidly, with products which are closer to their needs, perhaps even customized according to their directly inputted order, following the Dell example of how it custom builds its computers. Pure web plays are out.
Big business is in.
The answer might be found in nature, where there is an endless cycle of creation and destruction. There is a time to reap and a time to sow. There is a time to dazzle and a time to remain very still, wrapped in a cocoon, waiting to emerge. A whole new, slightly transformed, but always magical dot com era could await us.