Scott,
Thanks for your response. I think that you have made some very cogent observations, however, IMO the largest market for computers has yet to be realized. The potential as appliance is as a communication/informtion device for the masses, ie, low cost. There are a lot more people with telephones alone than there are with telephones as accessory, much less, personal computers. At one time, 4-function hand-held calculators were the cutting edge and were priced accordingly (if I remember correctly, the first was the Bomark (sp?) at $195, followed quickly by expansion to full-fledged scientific calculators with multitudes of memories, etc. Finally they gave way to the desktop computer and now 4-function calculators are given away free with magazine subscriptions and other promotions. My point is that there will always be a market for low-price basic "appliances". Right now most people don't use a fax or e-mail outside of their workplace. For ordinary people, the post office, telephone, TV, radio, newspaper and library are all the communication they want. When the cost/benefit ratio crosses some point on a curve, there will be an explosion of demand and it won't be for $1000 computers plus accessories. Cellular phones and WebTV are examples of this on a smaller scale. Eventually all these devices will meld into one category of communication/information "appliance". And as the price gets down to reasonable levels for "everyman", the prepared companies will survive and the near-sighted will fall by the wayside. I think that the first shakeouts will be in the TV tube industry as digital TV merges television tube mfgrs and computer terminal mfgrs. Keyboards and VCR'scould be next. You can make your own predictions; I know there are plenty of people out there (likely most of you) that have more imagination and sense than I possess.
The only constant in all this is that nothing stays the same (except maybe Steve Job's attitude re clones). The first telephone I used as a child was a handcrank private "network". Our number was two longs and one short. If we had an "outside" call to make or receive, we had to drive 5 miles to the General Store where they had a "real phone". If I had been told that I would someday have a portable device that I could use for e-mail, faxes, downloading programs, etc, I would have said, "What in hell are you talking about", because none of those things existed or were even dreamed about except in science fiction stories. And a few years later, after moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, our first television was a Stromberg-Carlson with the latest 8" diameter round picture tube in a box about half the size of a modern refridgerator.
Appliances are "the" market now and will continue to be in the future. If you have the right kind of lens to look thru, even Windows 9x can be viewed as an "appliance".
I have to sign off now, the sleeves of my jacket with the sleeves-that-tie-in-the-back need re-tying. Arghhh
Chas |
