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To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (174182)	4/19/2003 8:51:28 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Respond to of 186894

Right, Thank gawd all my money is in E-BAY! Jim

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (174182)	4/20/2003 1:27:25 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Bonehead question- I just saw an ad for a sprint card you put into a laptop for wireless connectivity. Anyone know what that is, is it just a sprint label on a wifi card like the centivo has built-in? Or is there something more to it, like this is some sort of 3G connectivity to the sprint PCS network? I'm not quite sure about the operations of this. I guess you could dial in to your company's VPN since long distance is not an issue for sprint? Here's the PR it looks like- Sprint and AirPrime Announce Wireless PC Card for Mobile Internet Users on Enhanced Sprint Nationwide PCS Network www3.sprint.com

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (174182)	4/21/2003 5:22:04 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Hi Lizzie, re: your post on Ellison's comments in WSJ on high-tech I didn't see the article - do you have a link? His comments frightened a friend of mine who read the WSJ while in Shanghai on business. I admire Ellison's bluntness, but his creativity level seems a bit lacking at the moment, if I've heard about the article correctly. He just creates more work for the rest of us that are trying to keep other entrepreneurs engaged on their courses. I wonder what the founders of Amdahl and IBM thought about their companies just prior to when the miniframe companies replaced their mainframes? Were the mainframe people declaring the high-tech industry as a "mature" industry back then? Mainframes had many of the products we have today. But a new infrastructure came along and wiped out all of that invention and replaced it. I wonder what the miniframe companies thought just prior to when Intel & Microsoft replaced them? I don't think Oracle is going to be replaced, but I tend to think the MNA people are desperately trying to create MNA business for themselves, and maybe Ellison is an easy target to be an advocate of their cause, to line their pockets, not ours. Ellison might be a bit weak in imagination when it comes to communications (or maybe a bit unplugged) - he doesn't seem to have the vision on all the zillion products that aren't yet invented out there. We're really living in a primitive world, if you consider where we are in communications. Where we could be, but where we are now. There's also some rather awesome new infrastructure that Cisco, Microsoft and Intel are all behind that I foresee will open up an entire new way of doing many aspects of business as well as make communicating more advanced & efficient than today. Cisco is doing all the heavy lifting on it, Intel & Microsoft are lagging only because it's not ready for mainstream, and probably won't be for (my guess) 7-10 years. Speaking of heavy lifting, since Cisco's doing the heavy lifting on this stuff and since Intel's doing the heavy lifting on wireless, what heavy lifting is Microsoft doing these days to spur growth in the industry, and to keep things fair? Here's a bad joke (with no connection to any real situation nor to any of the stuff mentioned above): maybe MS-Beijing's RND stuff is meant to serve as industry shareware to eventually spur growth - if not, why else would a RND center be placed in a country that lacks IP enforcement? Consider this: biz.yahoo.com "Reuters - By Yukari Iwatani - Motorola facing more local competition in China." ..."It built factories and established research and development facilities specifically to meet the needs of the China market. It has also appointed Chinese nationals in key executive positions there, giving them a wide-berth in making business decisions." Personally, the 51% ownership requirement in China certainly gives a person a pause, given the lack of IP enforcement. I haven't poked around to see if this reportedly 51% requirement is a real, true requirement imposed by the Chinese government, or hype by a proposing foreign company, or something that can be stepped around by buying 2% of some partnering company. If it's correct, then I certainly don't understand why other US firms would give up majority ownership of their foreign subsidiary just to do business in that foreign country, or why our government doesn't set the tone for better trade conditions. I'm surprised our large, powerful US companies tolerate such bad terms for establishing their foreign subsidiaries, and if they actually are, this is just going to get worse as a foreign country gets stronger. A person can do business in a country, without risking such ownership and minimizing risk to IP. Back to Ellison's article... I think you said he said there are 1000 more companies that need to go out of business. I actually think it's the other way around - that there will be only 1,000 privately held high-tech companies left when all things are said and done. We started out with 14k, then went down to 10k, and last I heard, there were around 6k left (forgot when that was - maybe late last year?). So, we have a few thousand more that "need" to go out of business, according to the "experts." But these are privately held firms, not public companies. Was Ellison talking private or public firms? I don't follow the count on the public companies, just the private ones. You know, there are huge advantages to being private - check out Bechtel - they generate billions in revenue -- all under the confidential protective covers of a private company. A friend of mine has a relative that has intentionally kept his overseas business private, just to prevent the WS people from finding out about his growth. His approach (to be privately held) is truly interesting, when compared to our approach here in Silicon Valley (to be public). Just a random thought here, I don't see why some entrepreneur doesn't invent a device that can detect Poison Oak. If anyone knows of such a device, company or poor soul that's trying to get their Poison Oak business off the ground, do please PM me. There's technically no reason why such a device shouldn't exist - I suspect it's a matter of visual image detection software with ample horsepower of sorts that's compressed into something small enough to carry. I bet there's still plenty of those non-money making image software companies out there that do that type of visual detection stuff already who I hear are now finally making some money due to the war & terrorism. I'm sure one could easily work out some kind of license agreement with them, or at least beg them, whomever they are, for the better sake of humanity. And there's no reason why one of my friends from mainland China couldn't possibly help consumerize such a device for manufacture - maybe at least as a favor to me - I just want one of those devices and the sooner the better - I recently quite narrowly missed Poison Oak on a hike. Talk about a lack of decent communications - hiking in the wilderness - we used devices where the different groups weren't sure if the other groups could even pick up the communications signal. Regards, Amy J