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To: Ken Pomaranski who wrote (1914)	3/4/1998 12:46:00 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Respond to of 164684

95% don't know who Barnes&Noble is, and 99.999% don't know what that German companies name is. 95% and 99.999% of whom? Certainly not book buyers (and in the case of BKS, not anyone who lives in any decent sized MSA in America and can read store signs). If you are going to make things up, you should try to make them believable. The same thing was said of ... Microsoft in the beginning. (nobody can unseat IBM! ha ha ha!). The same thing could be said for any software or internet company. I'm confused. Are you saying that "the first gets the spoils" or that they can be unseated (like IBM) and that to deny the possibility is laughable ("ha ha ha!")?

To: Ken Pomaranski who wrote (1914)	3/4/1998 1:06:00 PM
From: Candle stick	Respond to of 164684

... 95% don't know who Barnes&Noble is, .... You can't be serious....ask a hundred people on the street today and virtually everyone will name Barnes and Noble as the place to buy books......maybe 10 will know what Amazon.com is.........;^) Where do you live? Again, READ the press release that went out with the last earnings statement. Look at the site hit rates... Look at the customer base they are building...Look at the potential market. Again we are back to the old joke, where you lose money on every sale, but make it up on volume............;^)

To: Ken Pomaranski who wrote (1914)	3/4/1998 1:55:00 PM
From: Satellite Mike	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

How can you seriously compare this company to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Microsoft? Wow! How can you seriously compare this company to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Microsoft? Are you joking? As far as the first to the market gets the spoils theory, ever-increasing quarterly losses could hardly be considered "spoils". Your prohibitive cost of entry theory is wrong, too, as this is the cheapest way to vend books. As far as the "simply can't discount the advantage of name brand recognition" theory goes, that is about all they actually have going for them. You seem to think Barnes & Noble, Borders, Bertelmans have no "name brand recognition". They'll come up with a snappy name, too, with easy access. Will the market give them 20 points each when they announce they will sell discs? I doubt it. MV BABER

To: Ken Pomaranski who wrote (1914)	3/4/1998 2:54:00 PM
From: tekgk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>> 99.999% don't know what that German companies name It's Bertelsmann For those who don't know it's a 15 Billion(revenues US$) giant with assets of over 8 billion and a net of 595 million. The book division is 3.8 billion in sales with over 25 million members! They have distribution channels throughout the world. Some publishers that they own are Bantam, DoubleDay and Dell (lots of others as well). When they sell these books to their members they get a reasonable discount -g- Their infrastructure to handle internet sales are second to none. I can say that they can handle almost limitless volumes. Their call centers are first class as are their distribution centers. Having met with several of their senior VP's I can say that their management is outstanding and is very knowledgeable technically. They sell throughout the world - with the latest club just opened in Shanghai China.