Enron's Own Dot-Com Bubble Finally Popped

Enron (ENE Quote) is no longer an Internet company.

Of course, the Houston-based energy distribution and trading concern never was a dot-com, though it tried to convince Wall Street it was. In early 2000, Enron went so far as to suggest to investors the precise value of its nascent money-losing bandwidth business. Wall Street obediently obliged, inflating Enron's share value by as much as 75% from the time the company started bragging about its prospects, a disconnect noted disapprovingly here a year ago April.

Now that dot-com valuations have gone the way of full-service gas stations, Enron is finally owning up to reality regarding the broadband business. "It's like someone turned off the light switch," Enron President and CEO Jeffrey Skilling told investors Thursday morning while announcing an otherwise solid quarter. "Revenue opportunities have just dried up." ...