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

To: ecommerceman who wrote (9314)	10/28/1999 6:40:00 PM
From: Emmo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11417

Another interesting article...sounds a lot like Sprague at the Gilder forum broadcasted recently. HP Exec Says ISPs Will Disappear In Two Years (10/27/99, 6:31 p.m. ET) By Charlotte Dunlap, Computer Reseller News A senior Hewlett-Packard executive stunned ISPs gathered at ISPCON '99 by predicting ISPs will notexist in two years. The whole business of ISPs will go away in the next two years to make way for ASPs supporting apps-on-tap, or the outsourcing of software applications, said Nick Earle, HP's senior vice president, Enterprise Computing Business. Earle said outshining even Moore's Law is the phenomenon happening around Internet growth, namely that bandwidth is increasing tenfold every year. "Every phone company has to reinvent themselves," he said. Earle said AT&T told HP that the phone giant could cut its 7 cents a minute telephone cost to 4 cents if it could minimize IT costs by outsourcing some of its business. ISPs took issue with Earle's grim forecast. Herndon, Va.-based PSInet has no intention of changing its business model and hosting applications, said Harry Lalor, director of product management at PSInet. While PSINet's primary strategy is to focus on e-commerce, it has no interest in dropping its bread-and-butter business of providing Internet access and Web hosting to enterprises, Lalor said. In fact, the large ISP is on an aggressive trail to acquire all the dark-fiber bandwidth it can get its hands on across the globe, he said. "The next E is E-services," Earle said. He defended HP's e-commerce product and service model, in which the company charges its customers who use HP technology a percentage each time a customer collects revenue stemming from online business. "We'll finance you," Earle said. "We're not a [venture capitalist]. We may take 5 percent of your company, but then we'll go to the next [level] and we'll help you." He said Dell CEO Michael Dell collects his money from his customers before delivering products. HP is about to launch a $100 million advertising campaign to support it. The company already has invested a lot of money on the concept, recently making a $1.5 billion deal with Qwest to provide storage on demand. "An E-service is the opportunity to make money on the Internet, taking any asset you have, whether it's software, storage, or computers, and making it available via the Net to generate a new revenue stream," he said. It is not about Web storefronts anymore, but automated services, Earle said. The British-born executive offered a witty presentation, prompting chuckles with his candor. Showing an overhead slide of a large gorilla, he suggested that people become the 800-pound dominant gorilla in business. "You don't want to know about the hardware," he said. "You don't want to know about the software. You want to get rich -- admit it."