InformationWeek

Thomas Boswell, the estimable baseball columnist for The Washington Post, wrote that directive in his classic 1984 essay, "Why Time Begins on Opening Day." I reread the essay every April before the season's first pitch is thrown, but this year those words struck me as relevant to more than just the appreciation of baseball. I'd like to see them applied to E-business and the dot-com economy.

Boswell's point is that baseball teams, playing nearly every day for six months, must take a long-term view. At least until pennant fever kicks in around Labor Day, single-game wins or losses don't mean that much, nor do single-game or even weeklong performances. Two random factoids from this season's first month prove Boswell's dictum: Ken Griffey Jr. was batting below .200, and the Florida Marlins were in first place. The point is, team managers and general managers need time to judge how a player or team is really doing, before making any rash decisions. And I suggest that E-business managers should follow the same course.

I know this seems anathema to Internet time, the ever-increasing pace of change, and the new economy. In fact, as we roll into the fourth paragraph of this column, I suspect you may already be feeling that ingrained Internet age urge to check your E-mail, update the contact list on your Palm Pilot, or log on to see how the Nasdaq is doing today. Isn't speed supposed to be the No. 1 priority of every IT and business move? How can established companies compete with the lightning-fast dot-com startups if they don't act immediately?

First of all, "judge slowly" is not the same as "move slowly." You still want to be aggressive at the plate, take the extra base, and jump out to an early lead. One of the best results of the Internet revolution has been a thaw in the glacial pace of decisions and actions in large, established companies. Even before the Web, there was at least a decade of evidence that large companies moved way too slowly in responding to critical changes in customer demographics, buying habits, and service expectations--not to mention globalization.

The advent of Web commerce was just the kick in the pants a lot of companies needed. It was traumatic at first--the "two-guys-in-a-garage-can-put-you-out-of-business" syndrome. But armed with a new urgency, brick-and-mortar companies learned they could build solid E-businesses using the same Internet tools as the startups--and do it faster than they'd ever done anything before. Sure, they had legacy systems and entrenched bureaucracies and channel conflicts. But they also had something else--established customers and brand recognition. You can't buy those with a $2 million Super Bowl ad; just ask any of the dot-coms going broke because they threw all their money into marketing.

We're entering a new phase of the Internet era, one in which the successful companies are those that take a longer-term view. I certainly don't mean five-year business plans or 24-month ERP implementations, but a reasonable time line for building a solid business that will last. Amazon.com has always had that, which is why many investors have been willing to ignore the red ink for now. You could probably say the same for Ariba or Commerce One. But the current Nasdaq shakeout shows that investors are losing confidence in loss-plagued companies that don't seem to be building their businesses for the long term.

Dozens of companies have believed the mantra "The Internet changes everything" a bit too strongly. Of course, the Net has changed business forever. But it has not changed what business is about: selling products or services to customers for revenue. In our new world of media and online sound bites, day traders, and ever-shortening attention spans, too many people have forgotten those fundamentals.

In the end, it's not about buzz, hype, PR placements, Web-site stickiness, and IPO launch parties covered on CNBC. A lot of folks who believed that are running out of money. The Internet is here to stay, not because it's cool, but because it has become an established channel for business transactions. Turn on your hype filter and be skeptical when you hear that this month E-business is "all about" portals or marketplaces or application service providers or incubators. Remember that it's always about your customers--the best way to reach them, sell to them, and service them.

And judge slowly. It's a long season.