MH,
Sorry if it sounded like I was jumping down your throat. This is just one of those topics where I think people are getting way ahead of themselves (did you get the sense that you hit one of those "hot buttons" <G>). I'm sure that someday we'll also be able to catch a two-hour flight from LA to Sydney that flies through space, but I wouldn't say that the 777 is "dead". Gerstner's statement was pure b.s.
Re: the dumb box, I think we're there with the WebTV. I don't know how it's selling, but I do know one person who has one. He's also about my dad's age, and he uses it to print recipes off the Web, mostly. But, as I pointed out in my other post, he wouldn't have bought a computer, so it expanded the market, not replaced it. The WebTV has been out now for 2-3 years, does anyone else know of any users/owners (I'm taking a poll)?
Re: voice recognition, I'll bet we're still 5 years away from decent voice recognition. And even then it'll require a very, very high end computer. I haven't seen any reviews of any of the current VR products that says you can talk naturally and quickly to your computer -- most say that you can use them decently for basic commands only. And I don't know anyone who's rushing out to buy one. Does anyone on the thread know anyone who's regularly using voice recognition (Poll question #2)? Being able to talk to your PalmPilot in any decent context is probably 10-15 years away. Maybe further. I worked on a VR project in 1983, and the technology hasn't come all that far, quite honestly. The thing that has improved is the computing platform underneath it.
Re: the Qualcomm phone. Thanks for sending that article. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I don't think personally that I'll want a cell phone that does all that other stuff (I just can't picture myself trying to surf the web while I'm driving <g>). Keep in mind that companies like Nortel and Lucent are trying to put together systems that will "read" your text e-mail to you (it's called unified messaging and Nortel has their CallPilot product out and Lucent has the Octel messaging system -- I think the Lucent system can already read your text message to you and Nortel is only a year away max) and let you dictate a message to send back as voice. Soon, once voice recognition really works, they'll let you dictate a message that can be sent as text. These systems already use voice recognition to let you navigate through your messages, respond to them, and forward them. For example, you can (using voice commands) forward a fax that you received in your e-mail box to the fax number at the hotel that you're staying at. I'd rather have a phone system that does that so that I can keep my hands on the wheel. And finally, if the Qualcomm phone is really valuable for e-mail and surfing, then I'd say you just have yourself a PC shaped like a phone. If those take off, then I'll bet Compaq, HP, and the rest will offer one.
Re: growth areas. I agree 100% that if we're trying to find areas that are going to grow very, very rapidly, it's not the PC business anymore (other than market share shifts within the industry) and that all these other ideas represent potentially faster growing areas. But, as the traditional business school models point out, of every 100 new product ideas, only about 2-4 will actually be successful, and only 1 of those will be wildly successful. I'd say, for example, that the cell phone was definitely one of those 1 in a 100 ideas. I'm not sure that cell phones with little tiny screens and itty-bitty keyboards will be. I'd put my money on Nortel instead, right now.
So I'm just babbling. Please feel free to argue, discuss, rant, whatever. I'm old enough to know that I don't know everything and that almost everything I've said is pure opinion, not fact.
Dave
p.s. Ultimately, I'm not arguing that all these things won't happen. I'm just mostly arguing the timing, how quickly you call something "dead", and which vendors will get us there. I believe that someday there will be a full PC in a wristwatch that you can talk to and will talk back to you in a very natural fashion. There will be a lot of steps in-between where we are now and where we'll be then, many of which will be false steps. But we'll get there. And I believe that it's very possible that at least one of the current PC vendors will have the foresight and leadership required to be a major player at that time. |
