Kurt, The quotations you cited places Eveline's excellent post in a balanced perspective as Alex suggested. Between all three of your posts the future of Corel's prospects with the NC are made a little more clear.
There is already intense competition for the initial wave of NC fervor. Sun, Oracle, and several other players are much larger, more profitable, and more stable than Corel. They also have more experience in "hardware." If there is money to be made on the NC, how large must the market be for all proclaimed manufacturer's to stay IN? What is the projected gross profit margin per unit sold? How many units sold can be expected from Corel's anticipated share of the market?
It seems to me that the NC is already a "commodity." Unlike Microsoft at the time of the introduction of MS-DOS, all the necessary ingredients are readily available in huge supply from several manufacturer's. As Alex pointed out, with a hard drive added, the NC will be nothing but a "PC." With a 233 or 300 MHZ processor, and up to 64 Meg of RAM, Corel will basically be selling a strong PC with videoconferencing capability. And on the cheap. Can't imagine a very large gross margin from hardware alone in this climate.
And how about the Suite? As you pointed out from Peter Drucker, it takes a multiple of up to 10 to topple the strength of competitors. Corel, at present, just does not possess that strength. Will a package of the Corel VNC, Remagen and the Suite equal the needed multiple of 10?
And what about "Remagen?" If Corel has technology that will bridge Java and Windows, cannot Microsoft produce the same? Are they already working on a "Remagen" product to protect themselves from a major incursion into their territory? Nice Post.
Up, Up, & Away!
Scott |
