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Although Internet start-up companies have been dropping like flies lately, reports of e-commerce’s demise have been—in Mark Twain’s phrase—greatly exaggerated. And you don’t have to take only our word for it. Microsoft’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer, tells us in our cover interview ["Looming Larger"] that, "Executives of large businesses are more interested than ever in the Internet...in particular, how to engage their customers over the Internet." Ballmer adds that the crunch affecting Web-based enterprises stems from two causes: One is simply common sense reasserting itself. "The drop in dot-com stock prices is helping clarify where businesses can and can’t live on the Internet," he states. "People are a lot more sober and realize you can’t just throw money at the Internet. You have to have a well-thought-out strategy." The other factor he cites is more surprising. While the Web is widely hailed as a breakthrough in sharing information, Ballmer says it suffers from "a 1970s computing model." He says its design pretty much limits people to getting information that Web sites broadcast. He says the Web needs to get to the point where every kind of electronic device—cellphones, personal digital assistants, personal computers, etc.—can share information seamlessly with every other kind of device. He thinks that day is coming relatively soon—"I am extremely positive about the future," he says. In the meantime, the Digital Age is undergoing a strategic and technological transition, a pause before we get hit by the next wave of technology-based business models, such as mobile commerce. During this interregnum, some big companies are reasserting themselves against start-up competitors through old-fashioned muscle ["Bare Knuckles"]. But size still isn’t enough, even with so many start-ups in trouble that competition may not feel as ferocious as it once did. Boardroom squabbles at giant British Telecom have made it move so slowly that it has missed just about every recent opportunity to innovate and may either have to sell assets or possibly even break itself up ["The Sun Sets on a British Empire"]. In the CEO User’s Guide ["Measuring Up" ] author/consultant Fred Wiersema says many companies get into trouble by kidding themselves about how they’re doing against the competition. He provides a useful tool for figuring out, objectively, how a company stacks up. In Digital Strategy ["Moving Targets"], consultants John Sviokla, John Erik Garr, and Matthew Chittle offer an insight into how companies can rethink their approach to information. They say companies focus too much on building complete profiles of customers. Companies can, in fact, succeed even with modest amounts of information, if they can figure out how to tell when a potential customer may be in the market for their product or service. In The Great Lie ["Sense and Censor-ability"], writer John Perry Barlow sounds an alarm. He says censorship, once thought to be impossible online, may be happening. That, he says, would be catastrophic. In The Last Word ["None of Your Business"], journalist Adam Penenberg and online advertising industry lobbyist John Kamp square off on another hot-button issue: whether companies are doing a good enough job of protecting customers’ privacy. Tough problems, all. So, we’ve brought you some advice from some real tough guys—mobsters—in the Impact column ["Wiseguy Wisdom"]. My favorite: "Come heavy, or not at all." Cheers, Paul B. Carroll |
