Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Barry Grossman who wrote (55897)	5/21/1998 1:03:00 AM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Barry, I'm with you on that disagreement. I'm very much in the planning of customer support for those cheap PCs we have in the marketplace these days. The simple fact is that pricing is dictating that our support model needs to be more and more like the support model for VCRs and TVs. Which is to say fairly minimal other than real hardware problems. We can't afford to continue to spend half of our support dollars on software-related issues. To my mind integration is the key. When a user first turns on the computer they should find most of what they want on there in the first place, and it needs to be fairly tightly integrated and uniform in operation. What the world needs is "object browsers" not different browser applications depending on what kind of file you happen to be looking at or (even more stupidly) whether the file happens to reside on your PC, on a local network, or on the internet. That can't happen if the DOJ decides what should or shouldn't be considered core functionality. What's next? Will the DOJ prevent MSFT from building voice-recognition into their OS because somebody else might no longer be able to sell their niche application? Incidentally, what's happening to browsers/Windows is exactly what SUNW and NSCP have talked about from the start. A machine which uses a standard interface to do everything. NSCP and SUNW are pissed because while they talked and debated, MSFT went off and actually implemented a reasonable approximation of what they were suggesting. SUNWs NCs are just shipping now... mg