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To: D. Swiss who wrote (157882)	6/13/2000 3:25:00 PM
From: BBG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 176388

An interesting article related to trends and what's going in the computer market... Is the thrill gone for the computer scene? Updated 12:49 PM ET June 13, 2000 by John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine Despite increased popularity and market-share increases, the buzz seems to have disappeared from the computer scene. What's going on? Computers are hotter than ever. Sales are up. New categories have emerged. Applications are everywhere. We have an entire generation of kids who never knew a time when there were no desktop computers. So where's the buzz? Despite increased popularity and market-share increases, the buzz seems to have disappeared from the scene. Or am I missing something? To understand what's happening in a macro sense, it's often a good idea to compare the computer industry with the automobile industry. The parallels are striking. In both industries, one saw lots of enthusiasm in the early days, and huge demand. At first there were lots of vendors; then they consolidated until there were only a very few. The markets were large. But when we draw the parallels, we have to be careful about how they're drawn, in terms of various eras being comparable. If we can compare eras in the two industries efficiently, we should be able to see what it would take to put the buzz back into the computer industry. My Best Guess Think of the mid-1950s -- just before the era of the big automotive fins. Most cars are pretty dull-looking. Design is about to emerge as the major marketing factor. Most of the inventions have been invented. The automatic transmissions and smooth suspension systems are in place. Cars have V-8 engines and are functional. Except for the growing popularity of the 1955 Chevy and the emerging Corvette and T-Bird, not much is happening. We see a hint of big fins, but nothing like what's about to come along in 1957 and 1958. The cars of 1954 and 1955, to me, are paralleled by the Macintosh and the cool designs we see on that platform now. In the computer industry, we're seeing the beginning of the era of design -- and of fast-paced yearly design changes. No other era produced as many cars that looked as different from year to year as the years between 1955 and 1962. This parallel came to mind when I heard some pundit talking about how Apple has done nothing more than make its computers look good. See what happened after Apple did that, though?! It's not gigahertz performance that excites anyone, except a few freaks. I thought the gigahertz breakthrough was a great event. Nobody noticed, though. On the other hand, show people a clear iMac case and wow! Battery Life Parallel Another thing about the current computing era that parallels the 1950s automotive era is this: I predict we will see the demise of laptop battery life as a seriously important issue. Think of the evolution of the 1950s gas guzzler. Nobody cared about gas mileage back then, when gasoline was 25 cents a gallon. For computer users, within the next few years almost all airlines will have that little DC plug you now find on United's business-class and select British Air flights. People will just plug their laptops in to DC power on planes. Who needs a long-lasting battery when you can plug the machine in and get free power? This trend parallels the mid- to late-1950s automotive environment perfectly, when gas was plentiful and cheap. So what can we expect if these kinds of parallels are correct? Big tail fins, for sure. In other words, we will see outrageous designs. The clear plastic iMac case is just the beginning. I see Compaq attempting to make hot-looking machines such as the iPaq with some limited success. I suspect that within the next three years the Compaq approach will be the rule, not the exception. Nobody will make a white box or standard tower anymore. Taiwan Is Ready This last point about design is borne out by the OEM computer case makers in Taiwan that have been doing as much as they can to differentiate themselves from many others. Some of the empty boxes being designed in Taiwan are fantastic-looking. So far, though, the sellers of the finished computers have been reluctant to take a chance, thinking that nobody ever went broke selling a standard beige box. In fact, a lot of people did go broke, and more are going to go broke once the public moves toward "big fins." The problem is that no company has thought of hiring design specialists the way car companies do. This is going to change soon. This new direction will perk things up in the computer business like nothing we've ever seen. Look for it to begin when computer magazines once again put pictures of computers on their covers, as car magazines do. Editors won't be able to resist!