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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ed who wrote (9929)	12/1/1997 9:52:00 AM
From: Dwight E. Karlsen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 97611

ed, this is too easy: re how many families in the United States do not have at least one TV sets at home nowadays? And what is the money you paid for your latest TV sets? I'm not sure how TV sets came into the discussion, but I have zero (zip, none, nada) TV sets in my house, and I know a lot of people are have zip none nada TVs also. So the question to how much I paid is moot. Why don't I have a TV? There's nothing I need there. I prefer to watch movies in a theatre, I get news via radio, internet, and newspaper. What else is there on TV? Soaps? Game shows? Sports? I don't watch sports. That settles the TV question. re You told me that the majorty of people in this world had never used a PC because they can not afford the luxury, I just do not buy this statement at all if we now have $500 to $1000 PCs available Okay ed, you go tell those Malaysian factory workers and all those Indian factory workers and all those Chinese rice field workers that they can now afford a PC. You yourself have admitted that the majority of Chinese are poor, as are Indians. True, so there are 100 million Indians who can afford a PC, but that leaves the majority going without, because they can't afford it. Same goes for Chinese. Perhaps you really didn't mean it when you said "all families will buy PCs in the next couple of years", but anyway I still think you are way off. re Those who can afford to spend $300 buying TV set (Only function as a TV) can afford spend $300 to $500 more to buy a PC with so many excitting applications available. Tell me where I can buy it, ed. Not from Compaq. Compaq's low end is the 180Mhz for $799 plus $200 for monitor = $999. Plus printer, another $200-250. So in reality, a PC with printer costs $1200 bare minimum, and that is competing with $250 word processors that include monitor, screen, 3-1/2" disk drive, games, and personal finance. It's not a slam dunk, ed. There's about a $1000 difference in price there, and to a lot of people, $1,000 is a lot of money. Especially since so many people live paycheck to paycheck, barely scraping up the money for rent at the end of each month. We're talking the masses, and the masses include everyone. re As to your friend, a self employee who hired two or three employees and spend couple of hundred dollars to hire a tax consultant to do the tax every year and do not want to spend $1000 to buy a PC to help enhancing the productivity, my suggestion to him is "close the door"!! You tell me how a computer can help build a house, ed. Can't be done. Computer can help do accounting functions for construction business, but it can't go out and build the house. That said, I would highly recommend every small business owner to buy a PC to help with invoicing, payroll, and general accounting. But someone still has to DO the work. Buying a PC doesn't automatically get everything done. And when a self-employed businessman prefers to subcontract out the accounting and payroll functions, he doesn't have to do anything but pay the bill for services rendered. Again I feel like I should repeat that I look for the day when everyone has internet-mail and a home PC. More and more people are there, but it gets harder and harder to drive the home PC penetration rate up. Compaq is doing all they can, and I applaud their efforts, but it's still not enough. Cheaper and easier, cheaper and easier. PC makers need to tattoo that onto their arms so they can remember that. That's what it takes to drive up PC home penetration rates. cya, DK