R.I.P Industry Standard Europe

INDUSTRY STANDARD/EUROPE, Quietly and unexpectedly, at central London home, on 10 April, aged just six months. The youngest member of the American Industry Standard family, "/Europe" - as she was known - was born in October 2000 to much fanfare and amid high hopes that her arrival signified a new legitimacy for the European internet industry.

"/Europe" won friends by her uncompromising attitudes towards the failings and shortcomings of dot.coms all around the continent. Her mourners will long remember how she would proclaim her desire to "tell it like it is" and not serve up "the usual waffle".

Happier times

But in retrospect, her friends will wonder if she somehow foresaw her own fate. Only last week she ran the front page headline "Sack me please!" Looking back perhaps it was cause for concern when she began losing weight dramatically - it was not long ago that her plentiful padding of dot.com recruitment ads made her look nothing if not healthy.

She pluckily battled on, however, with - in the circumstances - startling bravery. Right to the end she was encouraging others to "be part of the adventure every week", promising them "business intelligence for survival in the new economy".

Her passing leaves a depression among many in the industry, who have had to become quickly accustomed to a high mortality rate. She leaves: 60 staff, 10 of whom are being cared for by her American family. No flowers.