Old-style firms risk hubris as Net conference crashes

The last-minute cancellation of the grandly titled World Internet Forum has caused great amusement in both the media and in dot.com land itself. The three-day conference was due to take place this week but was shelved on Friday after only 80 delegates signed up. This was despite an array of speakers that included Paddy Ashdown, Patricia Hewitt and Chris Smith as well as Vernon Ellis, chairman of Andersen Consulting and speakers from British Airways, eBay and IBM.

The last-minute cancellation of the grandly titled World Internet Forum has caused great amusement in both the media and in dot.com land itself. The three-day conference was due to take place this week but was shelved on Friday after only 80 delegates signed up. This was despite an array of speakers that included Paddy Ashdown, Patricia Hewitt and Chris Smith as well as Vernon Ellis, chairman of Andersen Consulting and speakers from British Airways, eBay and IBM.

The £1,625 delegate fee was probably a major factor in putting people off. Another issue cited by the organisers was the deluge of identikit dot.com conferences, many of which feature the same tired list of speakers doing the same well-worn speeches.

"Our details probably went in the bin along with everyone else's," said the organisers.

But the failure of this conference raises some serious issues. Perhaps the most worrying is that the collapse in confidence in the internet sector may encourage traditional companies to revert to their bad old ways. With dot.com valuations plunging and many internet firms going bust, there is a hint of smugness returning to the attitudes of the Old Economy players . The danger is that they start to believe they are the real Masters of the Universe once more and that they don't have to worry about all this e-commerce nonsense.

The warning signs are already there. In retailing alone Great Universal Stores axed its e-commerce director a few months ago. Kingfisher hardly talks about its e-Kingfisher division any more. And WH Smith barely mentioned its "clicks and mortar" strategy at its financial results meetings earlier this month, having talked about little else a few months before.

It is self-evident that in the current environment, pure play dot.coms are at a huge disadvantage to traditional companies with their deep pockets and well-known brand names. But the fact that dot.com valuations are on their knees does not mean that the internet has become any less important or will have any less impact on the economy. The old order may have re-asserted itself for the time being, but the new economy isn't about to go away.