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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Flair who wrote (5462)	3/13/1998 10:07:00 PM
From: Flair	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

All, - "WebTV on pace for 1 million users in '98" by Frank Barnako, CBS Marketwatch WebTV on pace for 1 million users in '98 Microsoft Corp.'s WebTV reports selling approximately 50,000 units so far this year, bringing its installed base to 300,000. "We see the numbers doubling every six months. We expect to be at a million users by the end of the year," Bill Keating, senior vice president of worldwide field operations said Friday. Keating's comments came in response to comments at last week's Jupiter Communications conference in New York. Researchers reported they had found two percent of online homes had an intent to buy a "set top box," like WebTV. (Assuming there are 100 million households, that suggests 540,000 potential purchases). Jupiter research director Evan Cohen said consumers don't see value in a set top box and that for sales to really take off, there needs to be a "killer app." Keating countered, "It's already a huge hit." In an interview with CBS MarketWatch, he pointed out the sales pace of WebTV is much more rapid than was that for video cassette recorders or cellular phones. "There already is a killer app," he said, "and it's a better way to watch TV." Pursuing that theme, the WebTV exec said "crossover links," embedded in television programming and accessible to WebTV users, will become more common in the next six months, and give users the option of going to the Web for more information. He also revealed WebTV has new items under development. "We are building products that have not yet been announced," he said. "They are stunning. There are eight times as many engineers working now than there were before the company was bought by Microsoft. They're not sitting on their hands." Keating claimed the biggest problem WebTV has is meeting consumer demand. While Sony, Philips, and Mitsubishi have increased production of the units, "two or three new manufacturers" have been lined up.