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Technology Stocks : Zenith - One and Only -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JERRY GACH who wrote (3638)	12/14/1997 7:43:00 PM
From: Robert Utne	Respond to of 6570

Jerry, Thanks, same to you. Got a list of digital-age winners but am focusing on ZE. Hint: control the eyeballs, control the purse. My read is that: 1. the living room battle is over and Intel's agreement to support HDTV (Zenith style) and the failure of WebTV to grab decent marketshare, confirmed it. 2. 95% of American consumers want the best audio and visual quality without all the other complicated gizmos. Don't agree? Just ask Compaq and Toshiba. For the past 50 years, we've been watching and listening to the same crappy TV standard. In 1998, however, every American consumer will have a choice: either buy the old NTSC version or spend a few bucks more and own either an HDTV or SDTV which will bring many thousands of hours of added video and listening pleasure. 100% agree with Zenith's initial HDTV strategy: provide the consumer only with 1080 vertical lines of HDTV quality on projection screens. Projection screens give you a sense of reality while the glass-boxed, direct-view screens are just another form of pictures in boxes. Also, anything less than 1080 lines is not HDTV and a poor also-ran when viewing sports and Hollywood flics. 3. the Rbocs are right. Everyone else in the telecommunications and networking world (including Zenith's network division), is spending 80% of their resources to reach 20% of the marketplace (the proven 80/20 rule). Few consumers want to surf the net in their living rooms. For what? To read the NYT? I get the Times, WSJ and local rag at my doorstep and on my computer, but guess which way I read it. To perform e-mail? PCs are more personal and work just fine. Few want to make their living room viewing a computer work place. The coach is for potatoe time! Following the Rboc example, risking Zenith's meager financial resources on the 20 percenters is a bad call. Recommend that Zenith focus on the 80% market whom will buy basic HDTV and SDTV sets from Zenith and competitors. New leadership, refined focus and more energy are required....