Slipped Halos
Back in 1999 the world’s stockmarkets were floating high on humankind’s incurable optimism for all things technical. The internet was changing everything and everyone wanted a part of it. As we saw in The Halo Effect: What’s In a Company Name? merely adding “.com” to the end of a corporation’s name was enough to send its price skedaddling skywards.
Then it all went wrong, and by some measures we’ve been paying the price for the associated excess of exuberance every since. Quite why it went wrong is still a matter of some debate, but one of the trigger points appears to have been the finding that Microsoft was using its monopoly status to suppress competition. For 1999 read 2011 and for Microsoft read Apple: could it happen again?
Back in 1999 the world’s stockmarkets were floating high on humankind’s incurable optimism for all things technical. The internet was changing everything and everyone wanted a part of it. As we saw in The Halo Effect: What’s In a Company Name? merely adding “.com” to the end of a corporation’s name was enough to send its price skedaddling skywards.
Then it all went wrong, and by some measures we’ve been paying the price for the associated excess of exuberance every since. Quite why it went wrong is still a matter of some debate, but one of the trigger points appears to have been the finding that Microsoft was using its monopoly status to suppress competition. For 1999 read 2011 and for Microsoft read Apple: could it happen again?
