At Comdex, CEO Makes Prediction For Tech Recovery
By Ibd Staff
Investor's Business Daily
Thursday November 21, 10:40 am ET
The tech recovery is under way, and National Semiconductor Corp. Chief Executive Brian Halla says he knows the date it will be in full bloom.
Drum roll, please . . . June 21, 2003.
That's right, just seven months from now.
That's the date when the fastest growth will occur in the new technology adoption wave.
Halla made his bold prediction in a keynote speech Tuesday at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas.
"We're already in an uptick," he said.
A flurry of new electronics devices for consumers and businesses will drive the next technology adoption curve.
Leading the new boom are next-generation cell phones with color screens and other features, as well as digital cameras, flat displays, voice-recognition products and overdue upgrades to corporate information technology infrastructures, Halla says.
Later in the cycle, new products that will continue the rally include disposable pill cameras that doctors will use to photograph patients' insides and smart personal objects such as refrigerator magnet displays that can show sports scores, news headlines and personal calendar data.
Other future high-volume products are biometric cards and security cameras.
His prediction is more than mere speculation.
It's based on a mathematical formula and analysis of monthly semiconductor sales data over the last two decades.
Company scientists studied the boom-and-bust cycles of mainframe computers, PCs and the Internet.
They noticed that the chart pattern looked like a sine wave, a type of electronic signal that follows a mathematical pattern.
National Semiconductor factored in new market dynamics, such as growing demand for tech products in China, and made adjustments based on chaos theory.
A big factor that pushed the date back by a couple of months was the possibility of war with Iraq, he says.
-PATRICK SEITZ
And The Gadgets Keep Coming
New wireless gizmos are drawing admiring crowds at Comdex.
Samsung is among firms debuting next-generation handheld computers.
Its Nexio, about the size of a flat, jumbo bar of chocolate, will be out in March for $749. The elegant device's screen mimics a full-size computer's.
The Nexio runs on Microsoft's CE.net embedded operating system and features built-in 802.11b wireless capabilities.
"What sets the device apart from other existing handheld devices is we have a 5-inch display that's capable of supporting 800 x 480 resolution," said David Nichols, director of product marketing for Samsung Electronics. "What that means to real end-users is your desktop viewing experience can easily be recreated on the Nexio device."
Samsung also showed the I-330, a sleeker version of its current mobile phone/Palm PDA combo. It will be out next month for the Sprint PCS wireless phone network.
Among other Palm OS devices on display is a 2mb Fossil PDA wrist watch, due out in 2003.
It will run all Palm applications, and features the Graffiti handwriting recognition system and infrared communication capabilities.
-DONNA HOWELL
The Force Of Copyright Protection
"Star Wars" creator George Lucas and the president of media giant News Corp., Peter Chernin, said Tuesday the technology and entertainment industries need to form a partnership to stop the rampant piracy of movies, music and other digital properties on the Internet.
In a presentation at Comdex, both warned of dire consequences for the entertainment business if the problem goes unchecked. Lucas said the studios won't fund "larger budget popcorn movies" if piracy drains theatrical and home video sales.
"I'm here to say there is no free lunch," Lucas said. "No matter how free it seems, somebody somewhere is paying for it."
The tech industry could profit from improved digital rights management and other content security measures, Chernin says. Plus, the entertainment industry could fuel spending on broadband Internet and home networking gear by making more of its content available, he says.
Chernin expressed outrage that the theft of music and video online wasn't being treated with the same urgency that would occur if billions of dollars in clothes or other physical goods were being stolen.
-PATRICK SEITZ
USPS Delivers For E-Commerce
The U.S. Postal Service is working on next-generation services to support e-commerce.
One demonstrated at the Comdex show in Las Vegas this week is a USPS electronic postmark.
Businesses will soon be able to use it to date and time-stamp virtual documents, such as contracts signed online, to prove their integrity.
"We should be ready to roll in a couple of weeks," said Barry Bergman, a vice president at AuthentiDate Inc.
The Schenectady, N.Y. firm provides the electronic postmark technology to the postal system.
"It's a service that is needed, with more and more electronic content happening. There wasn't an equivalent capability that matched the paper-based electronic postmark."
Bergman says the system is more secure and easier to use than one developed in the mid-1990s.
The new electronic postmark technology is built to work in a Web services environment, where several software programs interact automatically online to do a complex task.
The postmark service will also be available via an extension to Microsoft Office XP early next year. Microsoft itself plans to become an early adopter of the technology.
-DONNA HOWELL
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