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Technology Stocks : LINUX -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (1722)	9/2/1999 1:09:00 AM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2617

My response emailed to SAM. Sam, read the article on Linux. The nay sayers on the last two pages don't have a clue. Comparing what's going on today with Linux and things past is... hmmmm, absurd is all I can think of. As in all things mostly the fringe of opinions get more attention as they yell loudest. Where the action is, extremely smart folks just go along and smile. Your last paragraph with the reference to OS/2 is just so funny. I've used and developed and cross ported data and real time apps on vms, unix, dos, and windows system's. A half a dozen different Unixes a few Intel Unixes. I bought OS/2 and the full development kit as soon as it was released. I used it for a few weeks and as at the time IBM also wanted a couple of hundred more buck just for tcp/ip networking, I decided that IBM was out to lunch. My guess is that this choice to charge a rediculous amount for tcp/ip is what really killed OS/2. WHY? Because it just a slightly better windows. But to get the emerging important network capability you had to pay through the nose. Now today more and more network connectivity is an ever increasing factor in the value of an OS. Linux 5 years ago had better more consistant and symmetric networking than anything from MSFT. But unless you program some IP sockets, you can't understand. Because of my need to develop in a Unix/Xwindow environment I tried several Intel unixes. I used solaris X86 for over a year when I was first tried Linux. (cica 1993/4) I did this at home as I could not afford to break my work work station. After a month of Linux, Solaris X86 was wiped. Within a year I virtually used no MSFT anywhere. Oh yeah, I use 4 to 6 hundred dollars of commercial apps on each of my Linux system. I used theses apps for 6+ years. The first were AcceleratedX (www.xig.com)and Crisp (www.vital.com) As soon as it was available I started using applix office suite. (www.applix.com) That was the day that MSFT went away for me. I don't use Linux and have never used Linux because it's free. And in that I paided for SCO and interactive and solaris and OS/2 and dos and 4dos and windows and nt 3.51 and 4.0 and 95 and 98 and most recently 1.99 for Linux, I believe that the nay sayer quoted in your article are full of .... Well lets just say that they are technology and economics challenged individuals. TOM PONTIFICATES ON HOW IT REALLY IS. The highest rule. The speed with which one can process information is currency of productivity. Freedom is the chaos of having thousands of choises. The ultimate parameter PAIN vs GAIN If I two screens of computer data, Can I process twice as much information? Or in many cases is it better than twice? If I can keep organized 20 desktops of information and swich to any in less than a second, can I process more information? Seemlessly move windows across desktops for juxtaposition comparison. If the computer required to do this needs 1/5 to 1/3 the resources in a particular OS is that an incentive? An intangible invisible force. A pain killing drig. So what have I been doing for years? This is a little piece. I love building the tools to do my work. watman.com. Now Linux has always had a superb pain/gain ratio. For me this was mostly so because of the commercial apps I used. There are a lot of smart(IMHO) people like me out there who use Linux. But with all the companies now jumping into Linux, Gain is going up and pain is going down. For more and more people the huge pain/gain ratio difference between Linux and MSFT will become more and more apparent. The pain of Linux is mostly FUD and the gain has always been real. The never ending stories of success will wash the FUD mud from the eyes of many. It's a chain reaction. Currently I am less a BSEE system's engineer and more and more and Electronic Direct Access Trader. And boy the tools that I've built are great for my latest trade. Although I continue to upgrade software, I've frozen hardware at screaming for my apps pentium pros and could free software at redhat 4.2 or any 2 years ago Linux distribution. My window manger fvwm came with the very first Linux I used. So the incredible freedom to be productive in Linux is mistaken for chaos. Still water runs deep. Read Milton Freedman's Free to Chose. Read James Burkes Connections. Understand them and the simplicity of what I say is crystal clear. Tom Watson tosiwmee

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (1722)	9/4/1999 10:45:00 PM
From: Rusty Johnson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2617

Sega's Dream Machine (int'l edition) Business Week Online Can Dreamcast put it back on top? Shoichiro Irimajiri, the tanned, exuberant president of video-game maker Sega Enterprises Ltd., looked ready to whoop for joy as he strutted out of a recent meeting at Tokyo headquarters. The news from Sega of America Inc. couldn't be better, he said. As of late August, U.S. consumers had ordered 300,000 units of the Sega Dreamcast, a lightning-fast game machine with dazzling graphics. That's three times as many machines as Sony Corp. sold when it launched its now-ubiquitous PlayStation in 1995. And Dreamcast won't arrive until Sept. 9. 'It's a record for game console launches in the U.S.,' says Irimajiri, 59. 'We're very excited.' Is Sega the once-and-future titan of the game universe? In this fickle business, anything is possible. In 1990, Kyo-to-based Nintendo Co. was the undisputed leader, with nearly 90% of the $13 billion global market for video-game software and hardware. Then came Sega, which by 1993 owned almost half the market with its popular Genesis. With PlayStation, Sony seized the title. AWESOME. Sega, now a distant No. 3, hopes Dreamcast--the first player powered by a 128-bit microprocessor--will win it back the crown. Or it could be Sega's last hurrah. After a $389 million loss in 1998 and big debt payments ahead, analysts say Sega cannot afford for Dreamcast sales to flag. Sony and Nintendo are scrambling to hit the U.S. with their own high-powered machines over the next 18 months. Whatever the outcome, Sega gets credit for one awesome machine. In European tests, Dreamcast was four times more powerful than PlayStation and two times more than Nintendo 64. Its graphic processing power is four times that of the Pentium II. And it's the first game machine with a built-in modem to log onto Sega's imminent online game service. Sega has lined up leading game-software developers and now has dozens of titles ready. 'Sega has a great machine,' says Shohei Tatemi, a senior executive at Capcom Co., a leading Japanese game-software house. 'If it can sell 1.5 million units in the U.S. by next spring, it'll be on its way to success.' To boost momentum, Sega is mounting a $200 million global marketing blitz. In the U.S., its tactics run from trendy to downright wacky. It's sponsoring the MTV Video Music Awards and hosting hundreds of events across the country. Two huge metallic 'mother ship' trucks jammed with Dreamcast consoles will visit 44 U.S. cities in the next three months. In Hollywood, gamers splashed about in vats of mashed potatoes, looking for the letters making up 'Sega Dreamcast.' The goofy antics mask Sega's desperation. Sega's sales have dropped from $3.9 billion in 1996 to $2.4 billion last year. And 1999 is expected to be its third money-loser in a row. Over the next year, $800 million in payments are due on debts Sega piled up during the game wars of the early-1990s. Not helping matters is the hasty departure over strategic differences in mid-August of Bernard Stolar, who ran Sega of America and built up its retail network. LIMITED WINDOW. And Dreamcast's high-tech edge won't last long. Sony is determined to launch PlayStation 2, a 128-bit machine that will play dvd-formatted games, by early next year in Japan, and in the U.S. the following Christmas. In a recent software demonstration, Sony showed off graphics of supercomputer quality. 'Dreamcast is better than anything on the market now,' says games-industry analyst Lisa Spicer of Westlb Securities Pacific in Tokyo. 'But as we've seen with computers, the PlayStation 2 will be better, and Nintendo's Dolphin even better.' ... By Irene M. Kunii in Tokyo, with Janet Rae-Dupree in Silicon Valley See the next edition of Business Week for the rest of the article.