Word: firm
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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John Klotsche, 56, is getting the same kind of tune-up. The chairman of Baker & McKenzie, an elite global law firm with 2,400 attorneys in 34 countries, Klotsche decided that the 550 partners in the firm, himself included, did not know enough about how to manage business in today's fast-changing marketplace. So the boss has headed to the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., to study business topics like strategic planning, delivering client value and implementing corporate change. Klotsche's firm is investing $4 million to $5 million...
...that's the pitch for this new electronic world: faster, cheaper, better. It's the same line we've heard for decades from computer manufacturers, stereomakers and software firms like Microsoft. "Information at your fingertips" is what Bill Gates called it as far back as 1990. Then it was an unimaginably seductive vision. Now it has become a lucrative reality for a select few. Compare.Net, for instance, has grown from four employees to nearly 40 in less than two years, and its revenue growth is a stunning 25%--every month. Yahoo's lucre spreads beyond Yang and Filo. Just...
Sears may feel the chill soon. Most businesses are finding that the Net is actually pretty lucrative. According to ActivMedia, which surveyed 2,000 commerce-related websites, 46% are profitable and an additional 30% expect to cross that line in the next couple of years. For some firms, the Net has become an essential competitive advantage. Dell, which sells $5 million worth of computers a day on its website, claims that the efficiencies of Web-based sales give it a 6% profit advantage over its competitors. Discount-mortgage broker American Finance and Investment, which conducts 60% of its business online...
...really? Or are frenzied investors merely cruising for a bruising fall? "If there's ever been an example of a mania, this is it," says Hugh Johnson, chief investment officer of the First Albany brokerage firm. "There's a pretty exciting future for companies on the Internet. But these stock prices are irrational." Not that rationality has ever counted for much on Wall Street, which prefers hopes, dreams and whispers when it looks ahead. As venture capitalist J. Neil Weintraut puts it, "There is no reasonable way to value these companies." Still, professional analysts have to try. And few want...
Here's one more reason why you shouldn't believe everything you read: despite modest sales predictions, Windows 98 is flying off store shelves. Research firm IDC had predicted that the new edition, widely considered a minor maintenance upgrade to the ubiquitous Windows 95 operating system, would sell a third fewer copies than its predecessor in its first year. But in its first six days on sale (starting June 25), Windows 98 had sold more copies than Windows 95 in the same period. So much for the experts...