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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ramsey Su who wrote (20927)	6/26/1998 10:28:00 PM
From: Justa Werkenstiff	Respond to of 70976

Boy Named Su <g>: I wouldn't buy Windows '98. But there are many who will. Build it and they will come and come they have: Message 5032764 Gates may have pulled a fast one again. He may have lowered expectations around Windows '98. It is selling more than expected. Microsoft is a better marketer than innovator in my opinion at least in this area. Gates is going to milk Windows 1998 and then move on to NT. As to what drives AMAT to $100 before the end of this year, what makes you think this Stiff has a clue <g>? I did not know you wanted or expected AMAT to be $100 by the end of 1998. You might want to make other plans <g>. . But the DRAM situation is changing every day. I think we should all watch it closely for clues as to the direction it is taking.

To: Ramsey Su who wrote (20927)	6/27/1998 10:06:00 PM
From: Steve Wood	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Ramsey, Re: Next killer app... As an over the hill software developer I've recently started learning JAVA. It is a very comprehensive, well designed software development language and execution environment. Conceptually it offers elegant solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing corporate IS managers. In particular it greatly simplifies and standardizes the distribution and collection of vital information to and from disparate sources. The main problem is that it is a cycle hog of epic proportions and is happiest when surrounded by megabytes of free RAM. It has reached critical mass among the developer community. Although it's to early to say for sure, it seems ever more likely that the solutions it offers will propel it across the chasm from "interesting idea" to "we've got to have this" among the corporate IT manager croud. If/when that happens, the next wave of corporate upgrades will be a given. I toss this out in part to solicit other views from those with more experience (JAVA, IS, IT) than I. Opposing views welcome. Que le vaya bien... Steve

To: Ramsey Su who wrote (20927)	6/29/1998 3:32:00 PM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

> How much juice is NT going to demand? Is MSFT going to be successful in forcing every sub $1000 PC purchaser (probably sub $500 by the time NT is released) to spend $300 for an OS? < NT 4.0 runs pretty happily on my desktop on a P200 with 32MB. On my "heavy hitter" machine it runs VERY well with 64MB. In that sense, it's not all that different from Win98. Unlike the consumer versions of Windows, it does benefit from memory above 64MB, but that tends to be useful only for heavy graphics, software development and the like. The strategy for the NT-based desktop is that there will likely be three versions. The existing NT Server and NT Workstation products, as well as an "NT Consumer" product. They would share a common kernel and overall architecture, but would differ substantially in terms of security, networkability, managability, etc. The consumer version would presumably sell for roughly what Win98 does. (It's worth noting that a full non-upgrade version of Win98 costs well over $150, though obviously the OEM cost is much less.) In any case, I can't see that change alone fueling huge increases in the DRAM demand. It would have to come from other sources, like NCs replacing dumb terminals in transaction-processing, handheld computing, and who knows where else. It's gonna be tough for a while. mg