Sunday, February 3, 2013

Those spaceships are long lost!

The IT bubble burst long back, and with it, did many fortunes...

The last decade of 1990s was a dream run for internet start-ups, and anything even faintly related to “.com” syndrome would be lapped by investors like hot cakes, without paying much heed to what the company does or the kind of potential it holds. This was where the bubble began, and this was in itself responsible for its bursting! It began in 1995, peaked on March 10, 2000 when the NASDAQ reached 5,048.62 points before bursting... During this entire period, the stock markets of US and other western countries saw the bulls in total control, especially with regards to the Internet and technology companies. Moreover, most of the Internet companies that were aggressive during these times were financed either by VCs or IPOs. And when this bubble burst, there was mayhem at the stock markets. What triggered the burst of this bubble was a massive multi-billion dollar simultaneous sell order from leading technology companies such as Dell, Cisco and IBM. Though it is said that this initial sell-off was just a coincidence, but it was too strong for investors at the NASDAQ to handle. Between March 2000 and October 2002, the Internet and technology companies shed a whopping $5 trillion in market value!

Different analysts have their own reasons as to what led to the crash-landing. Some say that it was a result of the ‘irrational crowd behavior’ that led people to believe that there was substantial value to be made in this field of business. Others however feel that this was a result of lack of information about this new domain, and their inability to ascertain the asset value, which drove rational people to commit this mistake. According to Rob Enderle, Technology Analyst, “The Dot com bubble burst, because it was feeding frenzy on Internet stocks and investments without any adequate financial controls or acceptable business practices. Folks acted like they were going to be measured on how much money they could spend in the shortest period of time.” Another opinion points out that the business model that these Internet companies followed at that time was flawed.

The idea of these companies was to work towards monopolising the sector that they functioned in, with the help of network effects and rope-in as many subscribers as possible, rather than think about ways to earn revenues from the same. What added to their miseries were the increased spending in the technology that would enable Y2K switchover. The companies soon realised that all these investments were of no use for them. Whatever be the case, this bubble is recalled as the worst that the Silicon Valley has seen till date. It wiped off almost 50% of IT-based companies across the world... rough patch indeed! Some of the prominent names that were shaven off were: Webvan, Pets.com, Kozmo.com and Floorz.com.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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