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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: saukriver who wrote (33059)	10/12/2000 10:18:14 AM
From: gingersreisse	Respond to of 54805

The NYT article pointed out a G&K issue: GMST's proprietary open architecture, with limited partners, confronting an open and widely used architecture (Adobe) with many partners and, separately, a well funded, alleged monopolist (MSFT) with a distributor ally BN. GMST offers some security to publishers in a Napster conscious world, Adobe offers none. John Malone taught an interesting lesson: TCI became both a content originator and a content buyer from competitors for distribution through TCI. E-books may have more credibility as a continually updated electronic version of newspapers as well as books and TV. I find an eight oz rocket more comfortable to read updated news articles than trying to read on a cell phone's screen. Bertelsman and AOL/TWX have now separated, AOL was supposed to become their gateway to the e-world. A Bertelsman investment in GMST alongside Rupert in return for a piece of the Hughes satellite business isn't out of the picture. It also brings one of the largest print merchants and textbook publishers in the world into GMST's camp. A bowling pin, perhaps? GSR

To: saukriver who wrote (33059)	10/12/2000 10:37:20 AM
From: mauser96	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

I was hoping that the new e books using Gemstar technology would be cheaper than the $300 up stated in the article. This is probably too much to appeal to anything but a niche market, possibly more commercial than consumer. It might be easier to justify for things like parts manuals than novels. As volume builds, prices will decline. Those who want to be first pay more. Most publishers will never trust their copyrights to a method using only software to protect them. GMST has a big advantage here. Distribution channels in chain booksellers is of limited value - most of them don't even sell regular books in an efficient manner, and have no expertise in selling anything electronic.