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Technology Stocks : Information Architects (IARC): E-Commerce & EIP -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Witmyer who wrote (3221)	11/13/1997 11:56:00 AM
From: ed doell	Respond to of 10786

All ALYD a message from "Westy" Westergaard Online Weekly Interpreter westergaard.com Editor John Westergaard reporting: >>WHERE ARE YOU GUYS NOW WHO ACCUSED ME AND OTHERS OF HYPING THE INTERNET TWO YEARS AGO??? No question but that there's a lot of hype out in the world. People want to be heard while a battle rages for media "shelf space" -- information overload, they call. I'm criticized for this at times. I tend to state my views in no uncertain terms which leads some of my best friends to complain about me being hyper. When Senator Pat Moynihan and I met with Bob Rubin at Treasury last December and I told Rubin he would be vilified when leaving office in 2001 for failing to deal with the Year 2000 Problem, Moynihan on the way out said, "John, you were a little strong, weren't you?" That was telling me to cool it in his typically gentlemanly manner. Last night I had dinner with Richard Holman, publisher of The Wall Street Transcript, who smiled benignly as I laid out the forthcoming Y2K disaster scenario. He was responding with "ridicule by body language". He probably doesn't even realize it himself and I certainly didn't take it personally but it was disturbing to find a Wall Street publisher so uninformed about the problem. Which gets me to my point. Two subjects have emerged in recent years where I and others have been accused of hype. One is this Y2K Problem. My response is that over the course of almost two years now there is not a single fact that I have learned about the matter that has not supported the my extreme scenario. THE Y2K PROBLEM LOOKS WORSE AND WORSE EVERY SINGLE DAY. The other so-called hype has to do with the role of the Internet in profoundly changing the culture of how business is done, not to speak of virtually every other field of human endeavor. Two years ago it was widely charged that this global view of the Internet was as much hype as it was reality. You rarely hear that today but you heard it a lot two years ago. What brings this to mind is the lead story in the current issue of Internet Week about the experience of Cisco in marketing its networking products via the Internet. Cisco began this Internet marketing effort a year ago. The results have been beyond belief. Its marketing site, Cisco Connection Online (CCO), which automates product ordering and customer support activities, now accounts for 40% of sales, projected at 50% by year end. That amounts to sales of $9 million per day which is a $3 billion annual rate. Think about that. From a standing start this company has in one year shifted the processing of $3 billion of its business to the Internet saving an estimated $270 million in expenses. Amazing, amazing!!! Soooo.... you guys out there who accused me of hyping the the Internet two years ago. Where are you now? And you know what -- you are same guys who today accuse me and others of hyping the Y2K Problem??? And you also know what -- I won't be hearing from you a year from now either as panic sets in and the market drops 40%. You read it here first!!!<< Good luck to everyone, Ed