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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Antol who wrote (19727)	1/19/1998 10:19:00 PM
From: Jim McCormack	Respond to of 42771

How about a Diversion..... How about a diversion as things are really "Heavy" in here. Anyway.... Couple of thoughts on "The Next Big Thing" The next wave (For me anyway) is "Task Specific - Field Systems" Inventory barcoding, Real estate appraisal, Meter reading, Traffic Ticket writing. There is a new set of tools for automating task specific functions in industries such as "Route" based Service Businesses - The beer truck, the pool man, the dry cleaner, the exterminator, the bread man - you know anyone with a work ticket and a truck who visits you and does a service or provides a product and asks you to sign a paper form he has completed detailing what they have done. It is all going to change - and quickly. Why? - In a word - WindowsCE. Up until now it took extremely expensive dedicated hardware and software to construct these systems - see FedEX, UPS, IBM, Avis. Not anymore as the Windows architecture has been yet again extended. With the advent of WindowsCE Windows apllications are deeper more vertical then ever. The Windows Architecture WOSA now extends from the Server - Desktop - Laptop- Handheld - and soon to even TV (WebTV that is). Yeah I know JAVA will run on all those too. Maybe some day but today I can deploy Windows apllications that extend from HQ to the Branch to the Field Tech. All talk to each other - sync up with each other and most importantly - put the information where it is needed - In the field. The computer is going to reach out to embrace yet another layer of the working world. Mobile "Blue Collar" professionals. While some may argue how "Open" Windows is the architecture has a huge developer base and they will now enjoy another huge market in which to write and deploy software. Automating mobile blue collar professionals with off the shelf commodity hardware and software like WindowsCE and WindowsCE Handhelds is 75% (My own experience) cheaper then proprietary custom solutions. ROI Justified at Last! We will deploy 900 WindowsCE handheld computers to our field technicians over the next 12 months to distribute data collection from the field. Big Deal right? Well it is a big deal because these folks are "Blue Collar" professionals. Service technicians. Not white collar folks.... They have never gotten technology before. They do tough dirty difficult work. They have not used a computer before. Big challenges - Huge payback if they are overcome. We will get the results of thier field service work with a nightly modem upload to our database. Think of the customer service potential. We will be able to tell our National Account Customers what stores we visited last night what services we performed. What problems we found and what steps they may want to take to solve the problems. What we can do to solve them if they let us (For a fee of course). These reports used to require a manual tally from carbon forms that took weeks.... Just one example. This will transform our industry. If you can't provide the information as quickly and as accurately as we can you will not win the account we will. The bar is about to be raised. Information has become an integral part of the service. Our industry is at a new dawn. WindowsCE (Blue Collar mobile Field Automation) will reshape entire industries. It will transform businesses and entire markets - very exciting stuff. Why not a laptop - Way to expensive and way to large and bulky. Windows95 - Way to complex. WindowsCE devices have no moving parts - they are all solid state. They are smaller more portable have 2 week battery lifes. WindowsCE devices can function as dedicated software platforms and be configured to act and run like they support only a single apllication. As they say....Own one and you will understand. Check out WindowsCE 2.0 - Probably the most important development in the industry for 1997. One day soon more WindowsCE devices will be bought then Laptops. All those field techs.... Hey - I'm not bored anymore.... Jim McCormack PS. As for Novell - This is an illustration of how the world has moved on and how file and print services are a small part of a larger Mosiac. It takes incredible focus to remain a valuable component. Novell is working to make itself a component in the larger model. They will find a role but it will be a niche role. What that is I can't imagine - Today - I see them as having potential but struggling with the realities of a niche role on a landscape they once dominated.