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Technology Stocks : Excite [XCIT], an exciting stock to own in 1999! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TLindt who wrote (509)	10/25/1997 1:00:00 AM
From: nshul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3183

I haven't listened to the conference call. From what I know about their plans, though, I think the biggest problem they will have is getting mindshare for the concept. There are actually alot of people in this country that don't trust computers as far as handling their hard cash is concerned. Some don't even have ATM cards, for pete's sake. There is a huge mind alignment effort that will be needed to convince alot of Americans to trust this technology (checkfree bill-payment/presentation) with their hard-earned money. I don't have a great opinion of automated distribution systems like Oil Change. I don't know how successful they are, but I bet you they don't get alot of renewals on the subscription service. I've tried it and I'm not impressed. In the rare event that you need your sound driver upgraded from version 1.0054 to version 1.0059, the service is great. But for larger updates, you probably don't want it to wait for a download of a 10 MB patch file. Plus, you don't know what it will do to your system or how it changes what you're confortable with. The type of customer that would actually pay for a subscription to Oil Change, is one that really doesn't need it - he keeps up with software updates he needs independently. For something like this to succeed, its got to be free (ad supported perhaps). On the other hand, Java could prove to be the great enabler of the software distribution model you speak of. Imagine Intuit putting up "Quicken Online", a java app on the Excite bus. site. Being Java, it updates automatically from the server. If you subscribe to the "Deluxe" version, more features are enabled. One of the great hopes of java is that you won't need to distribute CDROMS of software in the future, you'll just need an internet connection and a java appliance. Of course, java has alot of obstacles to overcome on the road to this scenario. If this ever does transpire, that "1/3 of the country" figure could easily go to 2/3, as it won't be necessary to have a PC to use software. You can just use your Panasonic combination phone/answering machine with LCD screen w/java processor. IMHO.