To: Uncle Frank who wrote (9043 ) 8/23/2001 3:24:18 PM From: Crystal ball Read Replies (3) | Respond to Don't tell that to Texas Instruments or the company that tapped into the distribution channels, Michael Dell'slittle start up. PALM pda and PALM OS devices are the same, and beyond the same. Think of Ma Bell (AT&T) all those phones (19502, 19602, 1970s) until the 1980s...MONOPOLY. The AT&T Breakup created Sprint, WorldCom, MCI, and all the rest of the Baby Bells, etc etc., there is more money post MONOPOLY than before, the same for Rockefeller's Standard Oil (Exxon/Mobil/etc etc). The Same will be said of MSFT. The same is true for the emergence of a new NEXT BIG THING and that's PALM and PALM OS operating system devices. The IBM Hardware with the MSFT software so to speak. The one that did not get away (see Pirates of Silicon Valley a great expose of how XEROX PARC PLACE Palo Alto Research Center gave us the GUI for APPLE/MAC AAPL, and the Mouse, and so forth leading to Windows, etc as Gates did the same to Jobs, etc. So Far, PALM has the MONOPOLY. NTAP is differenct, you have SERVER storage (most expensive but fastest) then you have EMC SAN Storage (cheaper but not as fast) and then you have NTAP NAS (Cheapest, and while not as fast yet, fast enough)...in a earnings recssion do you buy the most expensive, the 2nd most expensive, or do you get what works for your storage needs, that grows, because its a network appliance, networked attached storage devices tailor made to your own ramp up, scale up, of course you do, since purchasing departments are not throwing money away anymore like its 1999 going on 2000 Y2K, oh no, COST EFFICIENCY is back, and that's the NTAP storage story which I think will sell big. PALM devices are not like calculators, there is the 10,000 software program applications written in PALM OS. The PALM devices could be sent out as loss leaders really, they are not, they are making money, but, the real value is going to remain in the evolution and convergence around PALM OS. Once they are deployed, everywhere pretty much, the CRITICAL MASS will drive upgrade deals, where even MSFT will confess is where all their money is made.....otherwise what is this Windows XP good for anyway....think about all those PALM pda devices and their 10,000 plus application software programs that will run corporate America from the top to the bottom. Incidentally, EMC and BRCD just downgraded, not NTAP. Even Though all these ANALysts are just marketing penguins, feed them all to the Bears I say, or those Sharks out there.
