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Because of the e-skills shortage, both dotcoms and established companies have to take a degree of risk on IT staff who have the skills they need but not the experience, and on business managers who have experience of running traditional companies, but not of internet operations. Businesses are coming to terms with it because they have no choice but to do so. But David Plummer, managing director of IT and Telecoms recruitment consultancy Triage Consulting, believes in any case that the level of risk has been exaggerated as the internet has been over-mystified. Think of the internet as nothing more than a network, albeit one that everybody can access, he argues, and it helps to put things in perspective.

"One of the main problems in start-up organisations is that they don't have the traditional commercial skills and management skills" says Plummer, "so that causes them all sorts of problems. If you look at the number of start-ups that have failed, that would be one of the main reasons, things like: 'we're going to need cash, for capital investment and for cash-flow, where are our income streams coming from?' A lot of the start-ups have a great idea but they don't have the commercial, legal, marketing expertise, so traditional skills are actually still very much in demand."