Tuesday July 3 1:12 AM ET Another 53 Internet Companies Close in June

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Another 53 Internet companies closed in June, bringing the total of dot-com sector companies to shutter over the past year and a half to 555 or more, Webmergers.com said on Tuesday.

The San Francisco-based online hub for buying and selling Internet companies and dot-com properties has been tallying the Web's casualties for months, and said the first half of this year has been especially brutal.

According to Webmergers.com chief executive Tim Miller, nearly 60 percent of all Internet company shutdowns since January 2000 took place in the first half of this year.

Moreover, more than nine times as many Web companies shut down in the first half of 2001 as in first half of 2000, or 330 compared to 36 in the same period last year.

``We are seeing the plague migrate increasingly away from B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce and toward properties that provide Internet access, infrastructure or consulting services to a business or general audience,'' Miller said.

``The tail-end of the B2C shakeout is overlapping with the early stages of the shakeout in more business-oriented companies, including access providers, consultancies and providers of infrastructure software, including application service providers (ASPs),'' Miller said. ``So far this year 14 ASPs have shut down compared with only several last year.''

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010703/wr/tech_closings_dc_1.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), July 03, 2001