more from Michael Dell's broadband views from today's Barron's":
(important regarding storage expansion - note his comment on a videoclip of 10mgb - currently takes 20 to 30 minutes on 28kb, only 10seconds on ADSL - obviously, this increases the function/expansion of storage)
<<More important, at least to Dell, is that just an estimated 29% of America is wired at all, and all but a fraction of those computer users are plugged in via slow modems. But within three years, he predicts, most of them will have a high-speed connection -- a big step toward creation of a wired world. A world that probably would benefit his company and many of its big rivals.
Certainly, the price of high-speed access is falling fast, while broadband's enticements are becoming clearer: downloading a 10 megabyte file -- the size of a modest software program, a video clip lasting several minutes or a couple of detailed Internet pages -- can take 30 or 40 minutes over a 28.8kbps modem, versus just eight or 10 seconds over a cable modem or ADSL line.
Moreover, most advanced Internet connections are always "on," like the cable feed to a TV, and instantly available once the computer is booted up. Internet pros argue that users' behavior changes dramatically when they have such connections, using the computer as an information appliance for e-mail, e-commerce, online phone directories, movie trailers and timetables, restaurant reviews and radio broadcasts.
While some on Wall Street and at the broadband companies talk of controlling this pipeline, throwing advertising at users and directing them (for a fee, of course) to most favored Websites, Dell is skeptical. "Sure, some of the cable companies did manage to change the rules of the game and achieve some of this for a few years, but I just don't think it will happen this time around with broadband. The simple fact is that it will be very difficult for the guys who provide the physical Internet connection to control the content. It will be about as difficult as it would be for your phone company to tell you who you could and couldn't telephone."
So where is the sweet spot? "Well," Dell replies, "think of broadband as a sort of Moore's Law on steroids for communications." (The original Moore's Law, promulgated by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, held that the density of transistors on an integrated circuit, and thus a semiconductor chip's computing power, would double every 18 months -- a projection that turned out to be very accurate.)
"Look not very far out to the next generations of technology, and you are talking about Internet connections speeding up by a factor of 500 times faster than what people have now, enabling all sorts of richer applications and new computer uses. The PC user will benefit, as will the companies that supply and run the networks, and those like Dell that make the fast devices at each end of the network, the PCs, servers and storage units. And when you get the fat pipe, the content companies will also benefit, since they'll be able to sell their wares and services more easily. Broadband is a killer application, whose time has come."
Particularly affected will be e-commerce. "We are seeing the beginning of some very exciting developments in the financial-services area, where there is an ongoing and rather significant transition from discount brokerage to online brokerage," Dell observes. "And that's only for starters. There are lots of businesses which can use information in ways that you just couldn't do before, and create something pretty powerful. Right now, there are lots of shopping experiences that are, well, just not fun. Sure, no one minds going into a bookstore, but what about the drugstore or hardware store? They're really not very fun places to spend time. Across America, lots of retailers are going to be very challenged in coming years by the Internet, especially if they haven't faced real competition up to now."
On Online Commerce: "Let's be clear about one thing: If you take a business that is a bad business and put it online, it's still a bad business, it's just become an online bad business."
Investor interest in direct artist-to-fan sales of music (and, presumably eventually, also videos) via the 'Net is already hot, reflecting not only the way giants like Microsoft and Sony have jumped into the fray, but also a stream of recent and coming initial public offerings by online music specialists, such as Liquid Audio, Real Networks and MP3.com.
Observes Dell: "It is a bit far off to predict, as some do, that the Internet will be the death of CD and video stores, not to mention video rental outfits. Still, when you get the bandwidth, on-demand online sales of music, video, movies and even video games will clearly start to happen, forcing companies which have existed up to now by the old rules and the old ways to adapt or die."
In fact, he predicts, that culture of Corporate America will be transformed. "Right now, if you are part of a team and there's a meeting, you have to go into the office, sit there and wait for everyone to arrive, hold the meeting and go back to what you were doing," Dell says. "With high-speed Internet, you can log on to the meeting from the road, even log on to just the part you want to attend."
Can any of you corporate warriors think of a better inducement for using the Internet?>> |
