The New Year has bought no cheer to the dot-com world, but the seasonal break has allowed me to reflect on the progress, or lack of it, made in the development of electronic commerce. I have always believed the medium was overestimated in the short term, yet dramatically underestimated in the long term. The concept of an Internet year being about three months has been proved a fallacy born of the speed of software development.
Software development can be rapid, but reorganising business processes is a difficult task.
Changing user habits is a long process, especially for consumers, who have little help or support. After all, they have the resources to raise investment and an established infrastructure on which to build new business. Most of all, they bring to the Internet their existing brands and a large customer base. First-mover advantage' is also proving to be a fallacy. Chemdex, an apparently successful pioneer of third-party Internet marketplaces, closed recently.