What now for internet companies - Hoberman (Lastminute) interview
Times Online - Industry sectors"What now for internet companies which survived the sector's collapse? Brent Hoberman, the chief executive of lastminute.com, talks to Mike Verdin " the article charts Lastminutes progress through it's "darkest post-crash days, and to expand, through organic growth and 14 takeovers, to a business employing 2,000 people and with annual sales of nearly £1 billion"
"Brent Hoberman, the lastminute chief executive, Britain's most iconic dot.com survivor, received a pasting two weeks ago when announcing an annual pre-tax loss of £77.2 million, taking the total the company has lost since its launch in 1998 to more than £250 million."
Hoberman "quotes Mary Meeker, the Morgan Stanley analyst whose reputation faded with the fortunes of the dot.coms she championed. "If you look at what she actually said, it was that 90 per cent of internet companies are going to fail, but the 10 per cent that win will win big.
He also reckons Lastminnute is close to tipping point ( he call sit critical mass) saying that the US is "three years ahead of that in Europe, and where, in online travel, more than half of customers seek deals online."
Mr Hoberman famously champions emerging technologies. "Lastminute is exploiting interactive television through a deal with Sky Active - run by BSkyB, an associate company of News International - and mobile telephone developments through tie-ups with Orange and Vodafone." He is quoted as saying " "For me it is all promise. Gartner is saying that by 2009, mobile commerce will be a $50 billion industry. "I do not necessarily agree with that, but it is a pretty huge number. Even if the (travel) market reaches only 20 per cent of that, it is pretty good."
He laments the "American suprecamy over global commerce on the worldwide web. "It is disappointing that there are so few European e-commerce players that are truly pan-European. European e-commerce looks like it is going to be dominated by US players."
He attributes this situation to the fact that "In Europe a lot of great companies that would have been European leaders did not get funding because the bubble burst. But US companies did get funding because they were ahead of us."
Can this situation be changed?
posted by Jen @ 6:21 am
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