Before the mad rush of “dot-coms,” the e-commerce world was a sea of dead calm. Now it has become a sea of “dead coms.” Websites are shuttering faster than they opened. Staffs are being laid off or cut back drastically. The growing pains have taken their toll.

But all is not totally lost. If one judges the state of the dot-com industry from the hvacr point-of-view, not all is doom and gloom.