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

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (2189)	2/24/2000 7:03:00 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2615

Well sometimes I wonder if these brilliant folks armed with the words "user friendly" are going anywhere. It seems that the current popular trend is to mix the window manager functions with the applications and create a homogeneous moron friendly gui. It's great to lower the efficiency to empower the lower 5% of intellect to be able to use a mouse and do a couple of useful things. But I don't like driving down the highway at five miles an hour. So I wish well those who provide for the handicapped. I will continue to provide my ideas on gui productivity mixing separate pieces that create sports cars speed and handling and tractor trailor capacity. watman.com On kde, it takes 6 to 10 times as long to come up as fvwm and kde does not know how to handle multiple displays. But Linux will rule even if a few window manager crash and shatter along the way. Tom Watson tosiwmee

To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (2189)	2/25/2000 9:23:00 AM
From: Rusty Johnson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2615

Sony's PlayStation 2 May Become A Means to Rule Entertainment By ROBERT A. GUTH Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TOKYO -- Videogame fans can't wait for Sony's new PlayStation 2, the game player that goes on sale in Japan on March 4 and in the U.S. later this year. When a Sony Web site started taking advance orders last week, it was overwhelmed and crashed temporarily. But Sony has even grander ambitions for PlayStation 2. It sees the machine as a sort of Trojan horse that will enter the house as a videogame player and then become a secret weapon to access the Internet, play movies and download music, rivaling the PC as the hub of entertainment in the home. Preparing for that day, Sony executives are already forging deals with music companies and Hollywood studios to build new kinds of Internet services and interactive entertainment aimed at the PlayStation. Just this week Sony set up a new U.S. company to create services for the emerging broadband market. It also recently formed a pact with Cablevision Systems Corp. to develop technology for digital services via cable TV. "We want to build a new entertainment platform for the home," says Ken Kutaragi, chief executive officer of Sony Computer Entertainment, the video-game unit of Sony Corp. Mr. Kutaragi's goal is one shared by many of Japan's technology titans: to dominate a new wave of Internet gadgets and services, just as U.S. PC companies have ruled the first wave. As the Internet weaves its way deeper into the lives of consumers, Japanese executives think they will have an advantage, given their expertise in making people-friendly products such as the Walkman and point-and-shoot cameras. Some executives liken this strategy to building a new arena where the likes of Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. don't play. "The PlayStation 2 is a new dohyou," says Sony senior executive vice president Masayoshi Morimoto, using the Japanese word for sumo ring. In an even more grandiose metaphor, Trip Hawkins, chief executive officer of 3DO Co., a Sony software supplier, says Playstation 2 will do for entertainment what Johannes Gutenberg's movable type did for printing in the 15th century. "The explosion in interactive entertainment you will see is huge," he says. Mr. Kutaragi calls the PC "a very nice calculator" that is well suited for chores like tax preparation, but is too cumbersome and lacks the graphics capabilities to handle future forms of electronic entertainment. He says the PlayStation 2, by contrast, will be a "home server" that plays sophisticated games, music, video and hybrids of the three, delivered over networks such as the Internet. "The world is changing -- the PC will remain as one of the strong powers, but other devices will emerge as communications vehicles for the Internet," says Toshiba Corp. Chief Executive Officer Taizo Nishimuro. "One very strong candidate, naturally, is Kutaragi-san's PlayStation 2." Sony's first goal for the 39,800-yen ($360) machine is to shore up its No. 1 position in the global video game market, which generated $7 billion in sales last year in the U.S. alone. One pitch: graphics-processing power on a par with advanced workstations used by scientists and engineers. In demonstrations, Sony is showing games in which strands of a character's hair ruffle in the wind and light shimmers on the surface of a lake. Sony executives believe they can woo a broader audience with the machine's DVD player and hard drives that can store lots of music and video downloaded from PlayStation 2-related Web sites. ... Subscribe to wsj.com Best of luck.