THE WIRED INDEX
Convergence can be a scary thing. Not long ago, it meant that media kingpins went to bed alone and awoke next to John Malone, Barry Diller, or Bill Gates. Today it means product cycles have sped up to where everything happens at once. Formerly discrete processes – design, development, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, and support – are becoming parallel operations.
Blame it on the connected customer. When customers can peer into the supply chain, they can query different departments to find out whether components are in stock, when products will be built, how they'll be shipped, and who will install them. When customers express a preference, all departments involved must react in concert.
Vendors of back end tools have reacted by broadening their product lines to integrate production, distribution, and marketing. Among WIRX highfliers, BroadVision, which started out making an online storefront app, now sells tools for managing B2B commerce as well. Software developed by i2 to handle SCM (supply-chain management) now plugs into software for exchanges. And everyone, including behemoths Oracle and Microsoft, provides CRM (customer relationship management).
As departments within and across companies coalesce, the key concern for prospective business partners will shift from what they can do to how readily they can dovetail one another's operations. Call it the urge to converge.
– Phil Hood (phood@digital4sight.com)
INDEX PERFORMANCE (as of 11/1/00)
| Name| Since 11/30/95| Previous 12 mos. | YTD
| WIRX | +422.20 % | +29.52 % | -0.18 %
| Nasdaq Composite | +218.13 % | +13.59 % | -17.19 %
| Dow Jones Industrials | +116.20 % | +2.25 % | -4.58 %
The Wired Index tracks 40 public companies selected by editors of Wired to serve as a bellwether for the new economy. For a complete description and the latest results, see stocks.wired.com. Data courtesy Bloomberg Financial Markets.
| NEW MONEY
| Process as Product
