Up until April, throngs of younger senior-management candidates at Old Economy companies were prepared to take a chance on a dotcom. Most are now ready to find more stable employment, and they won't have to look for long. They lost the bet but they gained experience. And it's not wasted experience. After chapter one of the Internet, we now know which rules of business have changed because of the Net revolution and which have not.
Good companies make money, as always.
But the Internet does alter everyone's plans in terms of distribution, customer contact and communication. Agreed, much of the Internet industry's consolidation could be seen as so many companies with bad business plans desperately seeking to make themselves attractive enough to warrant further cash injections. Some are already backed by traditional players and none of them are original, but all show how different industries might open up new business on the Web. With so many bricks and mortar companies still gearing up their e-business strategies, the experience that built such operations is invaluable. Yet many companies are still slow to pick the dotcom fruit.