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To: Heeren Pathak who wrote (20976)	3/22/2000 8:29:00 AM
From: DownSouth	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Disruptive Technology Watch! Duncan posted this on the NTAP thread yesterday and the weight of its significance registered on me in my sleep. To: DownSouth who wrote (2747) From: HDC Tuesday, March 21, 2000 1:24 PM ET Reply # of 2761 DS, New ML Research EMC & NAS In the Server Hardware Update Report dated March 20, 2000, Steve Milunovich says that a disruptive technology, like NAS, is a risk to EMC. He also says, "We think EMC may be looking to partner for a low-end NAS product in the second half [of this year]." ML has good research. This is important new information about EMC's NAS strategy if correct. The thinking has been that they would be using Data General's technology for a NAS product sometime this year. If this is correct, it could mean that the threat from EMC would be a repackaged product from an existing competitor with an EMC logo on it. We KNOW how we stand up against existing competitors! The fear has been "What would EMC offer against NTAP?" Have you heard anything from your sources about this? Best, Duncan I am issuing a "Disruptive Technology watch" to EMC shareholders. As you know, a "watch" merely says that conditions are favorable for a weather-related event. This is NOT a "warning", which indicates that a weather-related event is occurring and threatens those in its path. IF (big IF) EMC does decide to outsource (aka "OEM") its NAS technology then I believe they will have (unknowingly) capitulated the NAS market to its competitor, NTAP. Here's why: 1. OEMing NAS technology indicates that EMC either a) doesn't recognize the potential impact of NAS as a discontinuous innovation relevant to the current EMC market place; or, b) EMC is not willing to commit the resources required to create its own discontinuous or continuous innovation to answer the NTAP technology; or c) EMC has identified a heretofore unknown NAS technology with the price/performance and scalability required to fend off NTAP. 2. NTAP's WAFL, SNAPSHOT, multi-protocol, and clustering technologies are unequaled by any of its NAS competitors. WAFL and SNAPSHOT are protected by patents and provide the basis for multiprotocol and clustering products. The value chains linked to these technologies are very long and strong and the price/performance afforded by these technologies cannot be equalled using UNIX, NT or LINUX -based software. 3. IF (big IF, again) EMC OEMs NAS technologies, its margins on NAS will be under constant pressure because OEMing adds another cost layer. This will exacerbate NTAP's price/performance advantage against EMC's offering(s) and will erode EMCs stock price as these smaller margins become larger portions of the EMC revenue stream, unless the NAS technology that EMC OEMs is discontinuous, relative to NTAP's offerings. It has been discussed many times and many places that NAS represents a serious threat to EMC's architecture. The integration of NAS and SAN is occuring very rapidly and NTAP is participating in this integration aggressively. NTAP's products are scaling into the multi-terbyte capacity and overlap EMC's products at the low to mid range. Conclusion: We have often concluded that EMC is the King of its domain. That throne is under threat from NTAP with its discontinuous innovation. (Some will argue that NTAP is the Gorilla of NAS, with the BTEs, value chains, intellectual property, and tornado to prove its gorilla-ness. The jury is out on this, however.) EMC may be stuck in "The Innovators' Dilemma" with its customers insisting on improvements in the current EMC product line, its board of directors insisting on sustained profit margins, and its sales force pressing for the products that the current customer base is demanding. Thus EMC may the will to make the hard choices required to answer the NAS threat.

To: Heeren Pathak who wrote (20976)	3/22/2000 9:08:00 AM
From: Boplicity	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 54805

Heeren, When I look at speech recognition I do not see it as replacement for the keyboard. I just can't see people sitting in a office talking away in cubicles. It's almost comical to think about that. I see speech recognition being used, in cars, cell phones/handhelds, kiosk, house automation, and some direct computer commands. Still a rather large potential market. IMHO Greg

To: Heeren Pathak who wrote (20976)	3/22/2000 11:33:00 AM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

One of the challenges with speech recognition is physical. Not to mention the problem of an office full of people chattering away at their computer and each other. To really achieve Star Trek style speech recognition the system not only has to be flexible enough to recognize the enormous range of human voices, including strong accents, heavy colds, and the like, but in many environments one might also need to recognize the continuity of one speaker versus another.

To: Heeren Pathak who wrote (20976)	3/22/2000 3:26:00 PM
From: mauser96	Respond to of 54805

There's a big difference between speech recognition and word recognition. The latter is much easier to do, since in most cases the software doesn't have to try to distinguish between words like "to too two", and the slurring of words together.That's why it's easier for most people to read French than it is to understand the spoken language. At this stage in the technology, speech recognition requires ,training, a microphone,a quiet environment, and a fast processor. It also has substantial RAM and storage requirements. After all, this is a very complex process.It will be years before speech recognition is able to overcome these limitations. For many portable uses word recognition may be good enough, but I wouldn't count on high quality speech recognition for most of them any time soon.