Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TLindt who wrote (13835)	2/17/2000 8:31:00 AM
From: noiserider	Respond to of 20297

The other side of the paper statement argument It's tax time and I've got to send all my records to the accountant. I made some money so it's time to let someone else do all the figuring. He doesn't want the originals, though. He wants copies because he doesn't want to be responsible for losing or storing them. He will, however, take the paper copies that I send him and scan them so he can store them in electronic form. Let's see - huum - 1.the company starts with digital data and turns it into paper 2. I get the paper and turn it into more paper 3. the acountant gets the paper and turns it into digital data so he can archive it. OK, I'm combining steps 2 & 3 by sitting here scanning my paper bills,statements, and 1099s using an HP Office Jet into bit map files so I can email the info to the accountant. I'll save a tree or so by eliminating the paper copy and the trip to the copy machine. I may be abnormal, but with a wife and three kids I have brokerage and mutual fund accounts out the wazoo. (8 brokerage, 27 mutual funds - yeah, I collected 'em over the years as I went from money market, to Magellan, to junk bond funds, to overseas, Vanguard Index 500, IRA, SEP, rollover, 401K, Roth, stock options, UGMA, ETrade, Datek,....) And try to reconcile your Quicken account with the 1099B if you have several hundred trades. HTML statement format lets you copy numbers into Excel to do reconciliation. We'll all be loving e-statements when - we get incentives to switch (and I'm starting to see them from the power company and from Datek) Soon it'll be a surcharge if you don't get an e-statement. - encrypted archiving becomes part of the e-bill site. A hard disk crash wiped out Quicken a few years back. Now I backup on another hard drive AND a zip disk I store in another room in the house. When I get DSL or cable modem I'll consider web storage. I just switched over one of my brokerage accounts to e-statements and love it so far. Rambling.

To: TLindt who wrote (13835)	2/17/2000 9:52:00 AM
From: jefferson33	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

Mobius will probably make money in the short term. The management of information is important. But the trend today seems to be moving towards putting everything on host systems -- data and applications -- and accessing them from there. The user only having a relatively dumb terminal. With cryptography, the geographical location of your information is irrelevant when it comes to privacy. Of course denial of service and data destruction is another story. But consumers will likely find the benefits more overcoming. Take the concept of money for example. In a world where information -- please substitute "stuff" where you find it appropriate -- is the new currency, don't you think that people will eventually start using information banks much in the same way people use banks/brokerage houses today to store there money? Of course, you may raise the concern about hackers and information isn't really safe. Masked Hackers on Trojan horseback may be an inconvenience today, but that won't always be the case. One might not be able to put the Genie back in the bottle, but technology and law will likely help control the Genie.