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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (26681)	3/13/1998 7:18:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Nadine, I disagree totally. The demand for business computers has slowed because few businesses do not have one that meets their needs. And the new stuff just doesn't do much. We have already seen how the market ignored P2 and Pro until the prices became competitive and the same thing will happen with any new operating system that does as little new or better as Win 98 and No Tasks 5.0. MSFT can no longer play any tune and get everyone to dance. Y2K, if nothing else, will prevent spending for spending's sake, as has been the case so often for the pc related industry. And the fact that these new products, like the new products before them, simply do not fulfill their promises. They don't increase productivity and even the slowest businessman is now becoming aware of that. In fact, something over 60 pct. of business boxes are still 486s. Bulls look on that as an opportunity, but the truth is, it is a condemnation. If the smart people can make profits with cheaper machines, after a while MSFT and the others run out of the dumb folks who upgrade just to upgrade. One of the reasons I made so much money on my Picturetel puts was that I was among the first who realized that video conferencing is the worst productivity killer ever produced. When people are watching or listening at a video conference, nothing is being done 95 pct. of the time. Of course sales will continue. Heck, pc sales could even be up a little bit year over year. But not enough to generate enough profit to sustain these silly valuation levels. At least not until the tech sector makes something useful and useable in an affordable package. Otherwise, it will be a few tech nerds, such as most of us, buying new crapola, while smarter business folks spend their money on stuff that pays off, like scam stock buybacks. -g- MB

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (26681)	3/13/1998 10:38:00 PM
From: Earlie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

Nadine: I've been personally sampling and testing voice dictation systems now for over three years. The best of them work....barely....and only if you speak very slowly and very clearly. Don't catch a cold. The best one that I've tried still drove me back to the darned keyboard, and I'm the slowest, two-fingered typer that you have ever seen. I agree, that once they work reasonably effectively, that they might be a "killer app". Incidentally, my wife and my kids, who all type effortlessly, think that it will never touch the keyboard for speed. I disagree (g). I hate the keyboard. Windows 98 is not going to drive any kind of real buying spree, because it doesn't offer anything new or of consequential value, and the users know it. This will be the first time that "Big Bill's" MSFT won't reap a big return for their efforts. The attitude in the field is "Ho-hum...yawn" My contacts in the business sector tell a different tale. They say that they can't see any reason to spend over $1,000 for a PC that will perform only standard business tasks. They also have no reason to change what they've now got....and finally got working. Video Conferencing has in fact been peripherally available for years, but never caught on. Admittedly it hasn't been cheap, but why would anybody want it?....to stare at a slow scan ( or even fast scan) picture of the person you are talking to? I'm a dedicated tech freak, and love techie toys, but I wouldn't cross the road for video capability. Radio amateurs, of which I am one, have had it for years, but it is not terribly popular, even though it isn't expensive. Like you, I believe that software applications provide the real driving force for hardware buying. Unfortunately, I can't see anything near term that will spur upgrading. Incidentally, the drop in PC prices from plus $2,000 to under $1,000 has only added 2 to 3 percentage points of household penetration. That is the best definition of "saturated market" that I can think of. Every PC producer shrugged off concerns about an obvious saturation of the N. American markets as 1997 came to a close, citing "booming" Asian markets as the place where the big sales would be made in 1998 and beyond. PC sales into Asia will be crummy this year. Asia is buying bare necessities only. The industry is over-supplied, and demand has evaporated. Let the blood bath continue. Best, Earlie