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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (42322)	3/24/2001 2:09:58 AM
From: uu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 64865

> GM is putting the Internet in cars, for gosh sakes! Of course! But I can assure you they will make sure to pass on the cost to the buyers so their Internet offering makes them additional profits (instead of just being treated as an added-value and being nice to their customers)! Many customers may find the extra cost outragous considering its practical usage (after all for example how often you use your internet in your car that you find it justified to accept the cost associated with it)? You may find it useful and accept the cost. But I personally do not. I just drive up to my office and/or home to have access to the Internet! My point is There are thousands of applications that are very useful (e.g. portal gas station as suggested by McNealy). However their usefullness in most parts is in an academic context and in practical business real-life context does not make sense. Businesses do spend their own money to innovate, of course otherwise how else they can grow. However this spending only makes sense if the end results include making meaningful profits that would justify the spending. The internet model as envisioned by so many in 1999 and 2000 (and who knows still in 2001 after all the experience of the past 2 years) does not work. > Don't you wish you could check your local Best Buy to see if they've got the VCR you want in stock without having to call and wait on hold? Wouldn't you like to be able to tell them to hold it for you, too? Of course I (as a consumer) would love this convenient approach. And I am sure there is someone at the Sr. Management at Best Buy who also may think this would definitely help their business to grow! And therefore he proposes to build the infrastructure (e.g. buy the servers, host them at Exodus, write server side software, buy Oracle or Informix database, have Cisco routers purchased and installed, etc. etc.)... all so their potential customers can have a convenient way of checking to see if Best Buy offers their favorite VCRs! On paper this all sounds great and I can even write a very sound and logical business plan that supports this model based on the notion of increasing customers. But you know what? In reality and once the infrastructure is built Best Buy will soon come to realize after 6 months that the operational cost of running the infrastructure it build to provide this convenience to its potential customers simply is not worth it!! And they soon find out that it was a stupid idea to begin with due to the operational costs involved, unless of course they can pass on the cost to the consumers by increasing the price of their goods and services. And that I doubt very much would be considered as an option. What seems to be misuderstood is the fact that up to now people have thought that everything that appears to provide a form of convenience and/or "neat" way of doing things can ultimately result in actual real profits. Paying at the Gas station using your credit card without dealing with live person is definitely a very convenient way of filling up your car with gas. Oil companies have gone through a trmendous amount of effort and cost to make sure this conveneince is provided at their pumps for which they have passed on the operational cost associated witih this convenience to their customers. And customers have no choice but to accept the passed on cost! However Best Buy on the other hand can not possibly pass on the extra cost to its customers for the convenience it provides as expressed above! Customers will simply be turned off. Point being there are realities that we - as investors - have to accept with what continues to be nothing but pure hype with the Internet business models. And as realities are extracted from the hype, the real genuine growth rate of companies such as Sun will come to surface and understood by the investors.