effective March 7. Where does that leave the company, which now trades on the OTC Bulletin Board market? Like many others on the market -- the company is struggling to stay alive so as to be, hopefully, the last dot.com standing after the shakeout. Then it will be plain sailing. At least that's what entrepreneurs seem to be thinking these days.

I put in a request to speak to the company's co-founder, Robert Jennings, after the last Tech Tattle column on Mediconsult.com in January, but he isn't talking.

Like many Internet stocks Mediconsult.com has taken a hammering. The stock has now sunk to six cents a share, down from a high of $18.81 in March 1999.

Unfortunately the company that is about to take over Mediconsult in the second quarter, Andrx Corporation's subsidiary Cybear Inc., is also on skid row. On January 10, Mediconsult and Andrx entered into an agreement to merge with Mediconsult shareholders receiving 0.143 shares of Cybear Inc.

Mediconsult's debtors will get 23 percent equity in Cybear for their debt.

However in February, Cybear also received notice that it was about to be delisted from Nasdaq as it no longer met the minimum price requirement.

Cybear has appealed, and a decision is pending. Cybear's stock traded at about 38 cents a share on March 12, compared to a 52 week high of $4 7/8.

Parent company Andrx had to step in on March 9 and announce that it was giving the company a $12 million line of credit to see it through the market downturn on Internet stocks.

According to Webmergers.com, 49 dot-com businesses shut down in January 2001.

Since January 2000, over 270 dot-com businesses have closed, after their brief flirtations with fame and fortune. At least Cybear and Mediconsult are still alive, although for now they look like holes that swallow up quite a bit of money.

According to Forbes magazine, the Internet is progressing along a five-step plan followed by any previous major technology, such as the steam engine, aircraft and radio. The five steps are experimentation, capitalisation, management, hyper-competition and consolidation.

Apparently the Internet sector is in the hyper-competition stage, and companies are preparing for the comfort of consolidation. All very nice but is the scenario believable? As the investment companies proclaim, past performance is not an indication of the future.

Warren Buffet has the next line in this story. In his comments to shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway's annual report he described Internet investors as people who let their greed get ahead of their fear.

"They know that overstaying the festivities . . . will eventually bring on pumpkins and mice,' Mr. Buffett wrote. "But they nevertheless hate to miss a single minute of what is one helluva party.''.

Yes, and now investors are left holding a glass shoe and hoping it fits on a beautiful girl.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. You can contact Ahmed at editor yoffshoreon.com or (33) 467901474.