To: Bill Harmond who wrote (113867 ) 1/2/2001 10:29:01 AM From: tonyt Respond to of 164684 What ever happened to the Internet revolution? January 02, 2001 12:00 AM PT by Ali Asadullahupside.com The defendant: The Internet The charge: Failing to make good on the Internet revolution The prosecution: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we were promised a revolution. We were guaranteed nothing less than a storming of the Bastille followed by a Boston Tea party. Instead we sit eating stale cake and sipping tepid Earl Grey while the culprit, the Internet, sits there looking like the cat that ate the canary. The Internet has delivered precious little to consumers. Everyone was supposed to go online to do everything from banking to buying. Now it's back to porn and product recognition. And of course if you can't get online at a decent speed, who cares what you can theoretically do on the Internet? Sure DSL and cable connectivity should see subscribers in the ballpark of 35 million by 2005; but that's a should, not a will. And if the sluggishness of the current rollout is any measure of ability to deliver on a promise, the consumer should not hold his or her breath. Even as far as business is concerned, the Internet has failed to deliver. Unless you're eBay (EBAY), Yahoo (YHOO) or Amazon (AMZN), you can forget about business-to-consumer success -- and even those big boys are having trouble turning profits. Business-to-business, originally thought to be more stable and predictable than the b-to-c space, is faring no better. Just as General Motors (GM), Ford (F) and DaimlerChrysler (DCX) are finding that their auto industry exchange Covisint faces more hurdles than expected in providing a cost-cutting marketplace for nuts, bolts, rubber and rims, so too are other marketplaces finding that being on the Internet can be more than they bargained for. Even the upside for the VerticalNets (VERT), Aribas (ARBA) and Commerce Ones (CMRC) has waned significantly in recent months. And don't let me get started on the entertainment. The Internet should have left this business to the console, DVD and desktop machine makers. People just aren't interested in watching their computer screen when they've got 52 inches of excitement in their living rooms. For this reason, companies such as Pseudo.com, Digital Entertainment Network and DreamWorks-backed Pop.com now populate UpsideToday's Dotcom Graveyard. Even the names we know have the scarlet letter of the Internet stamped on their foreheads. This holiday season Apple Computer (AAPL) tried to draw a little more water from its iMac rock by underwhelming consumers with another Jeff Goldblum television spot. In the commercial, Goldblum suggests that consumers purchase an iMac because Apple now provides free Web space for personal pictures and home movie clips. Whoopee, that's exactly the promise of excellence consumers hoped would be fulfilled by the Internet. Then there are promises from companies such as Microsoft (MSFT), which continue to remind us of how merged media are to be the holy grail of consumer activity. But Microsoft's upcoming release of UltimateTV (as well as the older WebTV) will not have an ethernet card, relegating consumers to the hell that is 56K dial-up service. Ladies and gentlemen, whatever scenario you cook up, the Internet is there, failing on its promise of revolution. In fact, I would even call it a traitor to the cause. I ask you to give this Benedict Arnold the punishment it deserves. The defense: The grossly simplistic approach by the prosecution belies the fact that despite recent business failures or slowdowns in growth, the Internet has and continues to revolutionize the manner in which society operates and the manner by which business is done. Ladies and gentlemen, consider the sweeping revolution over the past 10 years in information systems management. From the largest data warehouses to small business information needs to consumer services, the Internet has given us a level of connectivity never before experienced by the modern world. The prosecution fails to see this big picture. Although anecdotally there are instances of failures and missteps, there are few areas of our lives that have not been impacted directly or indirectly by the Internet. With the help of enterprise systems, businesses are able to track inventory, monitor the supply chain and perform a whole host of diagnostics that ultimately help bring apples to the supermarket and keep the mail delivered on time. Where would we be without Cisco (CSCO), AT&T (T), Broadcom (BRCM), Oracle (ORCL) or Sun (SUNW)? Each of these companies is part and parcel to the Internet-driven economy. So before you throw stones at this rapidly developing area of technology, consider where we've been and where we actually are today. Guilty or not guilty?