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To: Kurthend who wrote (6572)	6/28/1999 1:45:00 AM
From: Mark Oliver	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10081

Can't remember where I got this link, but I book marked it for reading later which I am just now doing. While it doesn't talk directly about GM, it has implications to the max. iword.com Excerpts; THE WALLED GARDEN: OWNING THE CUSTOMER As the managers of the distribution channels for Internet appliances, service providers will be tempted to control the content and services accessed through their network in an effort to own the customer and maximize their revenue opportunities – through subscriptions as well as advertising and e-commerce. Service providers will likely customize and privately brand a "device portal" for each device they deploy for service. Much like the AOL start-up screen, we believe the Internet appliance start-up screens will become prime real estate for advertisers and e-commerce retailers, as well as content and service providers seeking to expand the distribution of their offerings. For example, the Palm VII, a wireless PDA to be released by 3Com in the second half of 1999, comes out of the box pre-loaded with access to Web sites operated by Yahoo!, Bank of America, Mapquest, and Ticketmaster, among others, through its proprietary service called Palm.Net. Service providers and Internet appliance manufacturers stand to benefit greatly from the competitive bidding on these hot properties. For example, Infoseek agreed to pay WebTV a minimum of $26 million to be its exclusive provider of search and directory services for the next two years. The "walled garden," as Eric Brewer of Inktomi so cleverly puts it, will be harder to escape on smaller devices such as smart phones and PDAs, which have limited display, processing, and power capabilities when compared with devices such as netTVs that currently offer full Web-browsing capabilities. However, to realize the promise of universal access and to leverage the full capabilities of the Internet, we believe that service providers will eventually have to offer their customers full freedom of Internet access. Much like the AOL of today compared with the AOL of yesterday, customers will demand this freedom from their service providers. We talk about the value of giving away a free service. The Walled Garden. What an elegant way of saying why this could be good. Yes, GM has a chance to build a voice based garden that would be very appealing to in exactly the same manor. What would it be worth to Ticketmaster to be able to sell entertainment to cell phone users through myTalk? Or hundreds of other pay services. I am often bored by comparisons to AOL. I'd rather see comparisons to Real Audio. The future will be based on rapid acceptance of a service that will pave the way for user acceptance. Late comers will have an uphill battle displacing happy users. But, they'll need to have content and synchronization to other services. Excite and Intuit are a good start. If they could somehow regain, what we have speculated, a position with AOL this would be a very powerful position. Mytalk may be a stroke of brilliance, if they can support to costs of deployment. In the short term, it certainly looks like they've got their work cut out for them. Regards, Mark