FreeMarkets' Glen Meakem: Ready for a Bloody Battle in B2B

Thanks to the gulf war veteran's leadership, his online exchange could hold off VerticalNet and be a key survivor in a perilous field

***********http://www.businessweek.com/ebiz/0009/em0920.htm ********

The fight to lead business into the Digital Age is Glen T. Meakem's second war. While attending Harvard Business School in 1990, Meakem, a U.S. Army Reserve engineer, volunteered to fight against Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf. Meakem, today the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of online exchange FreeMarkets Inc., left in the middle of exams and ended up serving five months as the leader of a combat engineer platoon. "To me it was like 1939 in Poland," Meakem says of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. "The antiwar sentiment was irrational."

*** ...Wanneer gaan we we eens gezellig naar de kruidenier op de hoek? Hoe denken jullie dat de gemiddelde internet gebruiker met dit soort laatste oordeel berchtgeving van de front linies omgaat...

Ben, jullie eigen oorlogs correspondent in Den BOsch

-- Ben Koot (ben@travelcompass.net), September 26, 2000

Answers

http://www.digitrends.net/digitrends/dtonline/qa/qa092500.shtml what's behind the Forester predictions...

-- Ben Koot (ben@travelcompass.net), September 26, 2000.

Jeroen, wie weet is hier het volgende "drama"...

Fallen Shares, Closures Plague Priceline It looks like the laundry list of problems that have recently been plaguing Priceline.com just got a whole lot longer. Missing its third-quarter revenue mark and being kicked out of its home state's Better Business Bureau due to high numbers of customer complaints are just a few of the troubles the Connecticut-based company has dealt with in past weeks.

Now the name-your-price site is facing a 29 percent drop in shares -- reportedly the seventh-biggest percentage drop in the U.S. markets - as well as news that one of its affiliates, Priceline WebHouse Club, is going out of business.

The company, which sells gasoline and groceries on Priceline's Web site, plans to shut down in the next 90 days. Jay Walker, the founder of both companies, says he concluded he couldn't raise enough capital to keep WebHouse running. In addition, Perfect Yardsale Inc., another Priceline licensee that offered used merchandise to consumers on the company's site, has also decided to cease operations. "This will be a tremendous hit to Priceline.com's income statement," Sands Brothers analyst David Sale says of the closures.

-- ben Koot (ben@travelcompass.net), October 06, 2000.

Maar...zelfs als kopje onder dreigt te gaan zijn er nog oplossingen. Als je het mij vraagt wordt het met de dag zotter....dit is GEEN bericht uit http://www.satirewire.com

Imperiled Companies Offered Free Ads The threat of catastrophic business failure doesn't necessarily call for a quiet slip into oblivion. Search engine http://www.FindWhat.com is now offering failing Internet businesses free advertising in a plan the company's chairman, Courtney Jones, likens to a game on the gridiron:

"In a lot of ways the Internet business, and any business for that matter, is like football. You need a solid game- plan, the ability to adjust to the competition as well as the ability to adjust to game conditions.

We have created this program because we understand the realities of today's marketplace. We've helped our clients reach millions of people in a very cost-efficient way, so we feel confident that this program can help get Internet companies back on their feet." The "Two Minute Warning" program waives advertising on FindWhat.com for companies that are at risk for a collapse.

To qualify, companies are required to provide evidence that they are indeed in danger of closing shop. They must have less than $1 million dollars, one or more announcements of drastic cost-cutting measures such as lay-offs. Lastly, they must show they have not been able to raise funds since their last public announcement. The program began Oct. 1 and will run through Dec. 31, 2000.

-- Ben Koot (ben@travelcompass.net), October 06, 2000.

Ik heb net het interview met Forrester gelezen, en er staan een groot aantal interessante waarheden in.

De mooiste: "Its just that a lot of these e-tailers took our forecasts to mean they could take a start-up to an IPO and make their tens of millionsthats not something we ever recommended."

Toch raar, er zijn zoveel mensen die enkel 'wat met het internet gaan doen' om het geld. Ik weet het, mijn opdrachtgevers zijn er ook niet vrij van en dat vind ik ook niet zo erg, maar opnieuw wat beurstegenvallers zou niet eens zo slecht zijn. Kan alleen maar wat realiteitszin tot gevolg hebben.

-- Jeroen Bakker (bakker@paragin.nl), October 05, 2000.