Cheap Ways to Hook Up means 100 Mln Internet Users in 1998
Framingham, Massachusetts, Dec. 18 -- Some 100 million people
will have links to the World Wide Web next year as low-cost
information appliances that hook televisions and phones
to the Internet gain popularity, International Data Corp. said.
In the U.S., a quarter of all households are expected to
gain access to the global computer network. Online electronic
commerce will top $20 billion, the market researcher said.
The increase will be spurred by devices such as screen
phones, TV set-top boxes, hand-held computers and video-game
consoles that link consumers to the Web. These appliances, priced
as low as $199, will threaten Microsoft Corp.'s dominant Windows
computer operating system and expand the use of Sun Microsystems
Inc.'s Java language, IDC said.
"If you think $999 PCs turned the market on end, see what
happens at $199," said Frank Gens, IDC's senior vice president
of Internet research.
About 18 percent of all U.S. households will be on line by
the end of this year, up from 13 percent in 1996, according to a
study by IDC/LINK, a division of International Data.
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