But by February, the markets had recovered and investors had regained their appetite for promising Internet companies that still happened to hemorrhage cash. Healtheon's future remains murky. With its purchase of Web MD, the company has become a comprehensive source of health-care information, the real money lies in commerce. Yet so far, only a handful of the nation's large insurance companies have adopted sophisticated computer systems and many still process claims by hand. Most doctors' offices are even less technically adept.
Web seems daunting, to say the least.
Clark, characteristically, had little interest in hanging around. Eventually, he hopes to be able to control the Hyperion from his living room, via the Internet. That's some ways off. Last spring, on the boat's first transatlantic voyage, the on-board computers inexplicably shut down the engine. Unable to fix the glitch while at sea, the crew was forced to complete the journey the old-fashioned way.