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Technology Stocks : PC Sector Round Table -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: appro who wrote (31)	3/19/1998 1:48:00 AM
From: appro	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2025

>>Microsoft will take us there<< Maybe not...Apache's free software gives Microsoft and Netscape fits Big firms lose business to rival product few know about msnbc.com

To: appro who wrote (31)	3/19/1998 7:20:00 AM
From: Pierre-X	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2025

Re: Replacement Functions; Tomorrow's PC A beautiful post you are having there. My responses: You said: Computers are replacing my old PC as well as my sliderule, typewriter, postcards, encyclopedia books, price tags on soup cans, car engine tuneups, newspaper and a gazillion other things we though we could not get along without. Indeed, there is a multitalented creature, is the PC. Is there any doubt that sooner or later, the PC industry will be the largest in the world? But before that happens there are a few necessary conditions. I believe consolidation in the PC world will ultimately be a healthy thing. I'd like to see the top dozen manufacturers owning 90% of the market. This will give rise to a support infrastructure resembling that of the automobile industry, with thousands of little service shops, serving their locals, and each specializing in a specific brand or two. You know, like Joe's Mercedes and BMW service. But we'll have Jack's Compaq and Micron service. That will be one factor easing the pain of a PC purchase for "the other 60". The other significant and necessary condition of course is an order of magnitude simplification for learning to use one. Once again, Device Bay, USB, PC98, and some revisiting of Microsoft Bob will move us in the right direction. You said: It will anticipate my need to be cool at night and drenched with warm sun in the morning. It will take dictation in my car. It will dim the lights when I settle down to enjoy a new sci-fi movie it found on the satellite. It will pay the bills, reorder the groceries, reset the clocks. Echoes of Asimov's Solaria. As technology investors, there is great benefit we are having to expose ourselves to as much "hard" science-fiction as possible. The writers spend their days thinking about these things, envisioning the future. But be careful to evaluate the market potential of the technologies you encounter in fiction. Writers seldom formulate realistic economies within their creations. God bless, PX