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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (28177)	9/19/1999 10:53:00 PM
From: Frederick Smart	Respond to of 42771

Eric Schmidt: Are You Reading This??? >>Buying groups and DigitalMe Oh did you hit on something here!!! Just imagine this. You get together with a group of people using digitalme and form a buying group. The group negotiates with a vendor to buy a variety and quantity of product at a cheap price. The vendor is selling to the group, the individual members of the group are unknown, the group is billing the individual members, and nobody has to give out anything other than a shipping address. Sounds like an interesting way to use digitalme to do the equivalent of a Price Club. It could be operated by a credit union, a Kiwanis Club, or a local home town retailer. Is this the first commercial application of digitalme?>> If I were Eric the answer would be.....Yup. Peace. GO!!

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (28177)	9/20/1999 1:38:00 AM
From: Scott C. Lemon	Respond to of 42771

Hello Paul, > The vendor is selling to the group, the individual members of the > group are unknown, the group is billing the individual members, and > nobody has to give out anything other than a shipping address. This is the power of "crowds" and demonstrates the value of a community ... not only trust within, but trust in dealing with the outside world. You, as an individual, are able to hide your identity within the community ... This is the concept of ZeroKnowledge.com ... you, as a member of the service, operate through a server which is used by a larger number of people ... the community can be identified and modeled, but not the individual ... Scott C. Lemon

To: Paul Fiondella who wrote (28177)	9/20/1999 9:42:00 AM
From: PJ Strifas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

Yes Paul this does make alot of sense. My family has been in the restaurant business for over 35 years now and some 12 years ago, we came together with a few other local restaurant owners and reached a similar conclusion. What did this do for us? 1) lowered our insurance costs (liability, fire and workman's comp). 2) allowed us to get health coverage for our workers which in return allowed us to retain the high skilled workers. 3) allowed us to lower food costs by buying in bulk (it eventually developed into a food distribution company that makes it's OWN profit!). 4) enhanced our lobbying efforts with local and state governments. 5) solidified a relationship with a bank which has brought us many returns :) [many more to list] We've created an organization which is greater than the sum of it's parts which has allowed us to flourish not only in terms of bottom line but in intangibles. Things like lower worker turn-over, better quality products to compete with the family-food chains, increased profile and name recognition. We've also be able to network amongst ourselves to handle many situation which in the past would have worked against us. If digitalme can translate into the type of mechanism which could lead to similar results, people will get on-board. This will take initiative from either a company (or 2 or 3) or a group of individuals. Either way, it will be an interesting dynamic to watch :) Peter J Strifas ps - yes, it's Monday morning and I have ALOT of free time :)