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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (63316)	11/25/2001 8:56:50 AM
From: alydar	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74651

<<I'm curious which is currently bigger: answering machines or voice mail (I really don't know the answer, BTW). I think the location of features on PCs vs. on servers is a similar issue.>> mr. tutt, i could not come up with a better analogy. i can tell you i threw out my answering machine and am using a central server voice mail service from my local phone company. it is a better product and they can upgrade all their customers at one time. rocky.

To: Charles Tutt who wrote (63316)	11/25/2001 2:06:56 PM
From: Dave	Respond to of 74651

Charles, you've hit a nerve here with this one: which is currently bigger: answering machines or voice mail I don't know, but I'm sure millions of people would prefer to use a local answering machine if only the servers supported local machines that can take a message while you're talking on the phone, rather than having to use call waiting. The only two advantages of a server over a local machine are (1) the server can impose arbitrary limitations that artificially make the local machine less attractive, and (2) the server defers payments that would have to be paid up front for a local machine. The telephone "servers" have set up the system so that you have three choices about what to do when somebody calls while you're on the phone: (1) Free (no extra services): callers get a busy signal. (2) Monthly fee (voice mail): callers get to leave a message. (3) Monthly fee (call waiting): callers can get in, but everybody is annoyed by the call waiting. You see the problem, right? If the system were designed by freedom-loving, consumer-empowering, open-source engineers, you could set up your home machine to either give you busy signal, voice mail, call waiting, or it could ask callers if they wanted to be put on hold while waiting. But because the system was designed by a monopoly, and allowed to continue after the monopoly was dissolved, the consumer has to pay a fee to the server company. The parallel is obvious. I don't want Microsoft, or Sun, or Oracle, or even Apple to design the standards the underlie computer networking. Their goals would all be the same: to maximize profits, consumer be damned. When the open-source people design the standards, the engineering goal is to empower the consumer, profits be damned. As for servers, there will always be a place for big servers. The IRS will have one, as will the Federal Reserve, Bank of America, and other large-scale entities. But the much more interesting movement is toward empowering every consumer, every small business, and every sixth grade class, to set up a powerful server on a low-end PC if they want to, without paying a monthly fee to the telecom infrastructure. Dave