Fabulous 50: ISDEX Grows To Reflect Dynamic Industry

In 1994 you could count Internet stocks on one hand and still have three
fingers unaccounted for. Four score and dozens of stock offers later, an
industry on hyper-growth now has more than 100 stocks in all flavors.

One need only walk the floor of Spring Internet World, going on now at the
Los Angeles Convention Center, to see how diverse this industry is
becoming. 50,000 to 60,000 people will parade through the convention floor.
More than 600 companies are exhibiting the latest Commerce, Content,
Entertainment, Services, Hardware, Access and more.

No surprise then that ISDEX, Internet Stock Index, today adds more than a
dozen new stocks to its fold, bringing to 50 the number it computes as a
daily average, enabling investors to track Internet representative
companies on Wall Street.

Check out the new ISDEX, with added stocks shown in bold with shading:

With the growing security needs of the Web, new firms such as Axent,
Cyberguard, Cylink, and Secure Computing are now in the mix. Axent acquired
former ISDEX listed company Raptor. We expect consolidation in Web security
software so keep an eye on these.

We’re also seeing broadband attempts and solutions emerge, hence the debut
of Broadband Technologies and PairGain. Look for 1999 to focus more on
these and this sector. Speed is the #1 goal now of many.

With music e-tailer N2K already on ISDEX, the addition of CDnow makes
complete sense. Now you can watch both side by side in the horse race for
music sales via the Web.

Egghead’s bold move to be 100% net, closing down its brick and mortar
stores, earned it a place on ISDEX if for nothing more than bravado. Its
$57 million in cash makes its claim, so early naysayers should perhaps wait
and see. Somebody’s got to be the Amazon of software sales here.

IP
telephony has a presence already with software maker Vocaltec, but we added
IDT, which provides Internet phone calls, to present the other side of the
equation. IP long distance is coming. How about 3 cents a minute,
guaranteed quality?

Old line Intuit has fresh blood in Web initiatives Quicken.com and mortgage
sites. It also Sponsors Excite’s finance channel. We expect more moves in
this space from Scott Cook, one of the few in software that actually beat
Microsoft and still does in finance software.

Metricom is one we’ve written about before. It has a long way to go before
earnings show up in a meaningful way, but Microsoft co-founder and
multi-billionaire Paul Allen believes in it, and Metricom has unique
services.

Verisign is a recent IPO that wants to be your ID on the Net. There are
good inroads so far. Wavephore is more of a behind-the-scenes information
blaster that we think could be more important as the Web grows its appetite
for professionally-produced news.