Some of the discussion on this thread is centered around bandwidth, I agree it is an important issue. Here is another view of a more immediate opportunity. AOL's name and its alliances are sprinkled throughout.
(Applies to: MSFT AOL SUNW)
Summit Strategies Forecasts Top 10 Computer Industry Trends to Watch in
1999
BOSTON (Jan. 12) BUSINESS WIRE -Jan. 12, 1999-- New Year Offers
Tremendous Opportunities for Changing Rules in the Computer Industry
According to IT Market Strategy Research Firm
IT industry vendors should brace themselves for a year of unprecedented
change, according to Summit Strategies, Inc., an IT market strategy
research firm headquartered in Boston. "The entire computer industry
faces more uncertainty in 1999 than at any time in the past two decades,
" said Tom Kucharvy, president of Summit Strategies. "We expect
tremendous discontinuous -- and disconcerting -- change that will
create new opportunities for vendors to reinvent market rules and that
ultimately will have a tremendous impact on end-users."
The top 10 emerging forces that Summit Strategies' senior analysts
forecast will drive change in the IT industry in 1999 are:
1. Internet Applications Hosting: Virtually all leading server vendors,
most enterprise software developers and many leading telecommunications
companies, systems integrators, and Internet service providers are
aggressively chasing the emerging Internet applications hosting market,
in which business applications are hosted remotely by Internet service
providers rather than run locally by businesses. As vendors stampede to
stake claims in this gold rush, corporate IT organizations face the
thorny decision of whether to adapt or reject this new computing
paradigm, which has the potential to reshape the computer and
communications industries. (For more information, contact Summit
Strategies' senior Internet analyst Marty Gruhn, 602-777-0299.)
2. Microsoft's New Vulnerability: Microsoft faces the loss of a
critical competitive advantage: the once-widespread presumption that
the company would ultimately succeed in virtually all of its endeavors.
As competitors mount ever-more credible attacks on Microsoft and its
reputation is tainted in the federal antitrust case, partners and
customers are reevaluating that conventional wisdom. The potential for
the rules of the game to change when it comes to partnering or
competing with Microsoft has never been greater, believes Dwight Davis,
Summit Strategies' senior Microsoft analyst. (Dwight Davis can be
reached at 425-823-9442.)
3. Mobile Business Appliances: 1999 promises to be a watershed year in
the evolution of the mobile business appliances market. Four key
factors -- the current momentum behind mobile appliances, the
availability of Windows CE 2.0 devices, the ubiquity of the Internet,
and the rapidly growing role of digital wireless communications -- are
converging to forever change the face of computing and communications.
(For more information, contact Tom Kucharvy, 617-266-9050.)
4. Power Portals: This trend, which emerged in 1998 and will be
fast-forwarded with the pending America On Line (AOL)/Netscape merger,
will see tens of millions of users get their news, e-mail and software
downloads, shop for goods and services from Netscape-powered
e-merchants, and potentially even rent software applications at the
same site. As power portals become the Internet's preeminent locations
to market and sell products and deliver advanced services, IT vendors
must decide whether to build their own power portals to compete with
AOL's 52-million-user reach, to establish portal consortiums, or to woo
AOL, soon to be the most powerful distribution channel on the Web.
(Contact Marty Gruhn, 602-777-0299.)
5. Delivering Services Via the Internet and Franchisees: Vendors such
as Cisco, Dell, Compaq, Intel and Microsoft are trying to push the
expensive, time-consuming, labor-intensive delivery of IT industry
service, support and training to franchised and/or Internet delivery.
Also, as video, voice and training technologies mature to more closely
simulate live classrooms, vendors are increasingly using the Internet
to train customers and partners. IT vendors that can most effectively
capitalize on these trends and technologies in 1999 will create
dramatic differentiation and competitive advantages for their services
and products. (For more information, contact Summit Strategies' senior
Small and Midsize Business Markets and Channel Strategies analyst
Laurie McCabe, 603-471-2861.)
6. Linux Threatens Commercial Operating Systems and Provides Model for
Freeware Industry: Previously confined to the fringe of the computer
industry, Linux is breaking out, with a huge potential impact. Kucharvy
believes that even if it does not capture the operating system market,
Linux serves as a model for open source software and is thereby laying
the seeds for a revolution in the software industry. (Contact Tom
Kucharvy, 617-226-9050.)
7. PC Vendors Morph from Indirect to Direct Channels: The scramble by
PC vendors to match direct vendors' supply chain and customer
relationship capabilities may mark the beginning of the end for
third-party PC channels or prompt the emergence of some type of hybrid
models. (Contact Laurie McCabe, 603-471-2861.)
8. Java's Reemerges as a Legitimate Windows Alternative: Java
developers are likely to produce the first significant enterprise
applications built to the new Enterprise JavaBean specifications in
1999. This, combined with other factors, such as the recent court
ruling suggesting that Microsoft may lose its Java licensing dispute
with Sun Microsystems, have set the stage for a massive struggle, with
the Java camp set to prove its mettle against Microsoft's Windows
platform. (Contact: Tom Kucharvy, 617-226-9050.)
9. Launch of Windows 2000: Guaranteed to be the most important product
launch of 1999, Windows 2000 could be either Microsoft's flagship or an
anchor around its neck, depending on whether it is a solid, reliable
and scaleable product.
Microsoft's ability to ship a clean 1.0 version of Windows 2000 is by
no means a certainty, according to Davis, and a failure to meet this
goal could trigger a hard-to-reverse decline in the company's server
fortunes. (Contact Dwight Davis, 425-823-9442.)
10. Server Appliances: "Thin" -- as in single-purpose, very affordable,
dedicated servers optimized to do one or two things extremely well --
may finally be in in 1999. McCabe believes the market dynamics for
server appliances may finally switch from push to pull this year.
(Contact Laurie McCabe, 603-471-2861.) |
