Across the business landscape, individual companies and whole industries are reeling from the impact of unprecedented change brought about by electronic commerce (EC). Major new competitors have come out of nowhere, fueled by access to seemingly limitless capital. Previously unknown Davids are slaying Goliaths, at least in terms of shareholder value creation. "Amazon" – a word formerly associated primarily with the region of South America surrounding the world's largest river – now denotes one of the Internet's major success stories and by extrapolation has become a verb, as in, "Barnes and Noble was Amazonned".