E:
(I never did check out GATE because of the weakness in the balance sheet. So what happens now when a company gets delisted ? LSI uses the Sand FireWire core or used to at one point. These IP people don't know how to make money do they. I think the Artisan and Mentor free cores to TSMC etc are an attempt to get designed in somehow at any cost - if they could I'm sure they would rather have charged for it! Anyway your article does highlight the importance of people power and smarts - yet another one of the BIG benefits of the Symbios merger - the people who came with the deal - the more difficult it gets to
design these things the more valuable the talent is. The more
valuable the talent is the more difficult it will be for anyone else
to copy the business model.)
Check this out - hilariously macabre article about the future prospects of the PC industry <devilish grin>. Personally I do not thing it is as bad as this implies but it won't be a bed of roses that's for sure (after all the fatter bandwith means the need for faster processing power, more memory etc - point is however that it won't just be the PC as the access device since other information appliances can do the processing power with specific application chips much cheaper). I like LSI's position - it is all about the future Sir "not the what has been" - information information information and how to get it to you at and me and all of us at any time and to any place very very fast <g>:
(also agree that cable is kicking DSL butt - DSL too may flavors but
mostly licorice! Bet cable in the home will be 3-1 over DSL deployment the next few years unless DSL gets the standard thing and reduces prices fast. (DSL should do quite well at the office I think - not sure) anywhere internet also means digital everything - so digital cameras, digital TV, DVD, "digital" phones etc etc; the
varieities of different devices means open systems which should
mean good for things like Java...)
(Being PATIENT waiting for the inevitable good times ... <g>)
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Netscape's Andreessen Predicts Free PCs to Boost Internet Use
Lake Tahoe, California, Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Personal computers will be free soon, as companies give the machines away to lure Internet users, according to Marc Andreessen, executive vice president at Netscape Communications Corp.
PC prices are falling rapidly as manufacturers compete for sales. Many machines are available below $1,000, compared with $1,500 to $2,000 little more than 18 months ago. National Semiconductor Corp. is trying to build chips for a PC that Chief Executive Brian Halla says will cost well below $500.
''We are on the way to the free PC,'' said Andreessen, comparing the future of PCs to cellular phones, many of which are given away or sold cheaply to lure subscribers to mobile phone service. The money will be made on providing Internet service over the PCs, Andreessen said, not on the boxes themselves.
Andreessen, who invented the technology for Internet browsers, was one of many industry leaders and pundits trying to predict the future at writer and technology prognosticator George Gilder's annual Telecosm Conference, which deals mostly with the future of computer networking and telecommunications.
Among the other predictions from attendees: that cable television will prove to be the best way to get Internet service into homes and that 3Com Corp.'s Palm III personal organizer could one day threaten the personal computer with extinction.
Andreessen, speaking late last night, made some of the boldest assertions about the future. He predicted the ''death of the consumer software industry'' as more programs become free over the Internet. Netscape, he said, learned this lesson the ''hard way'' after rival Microsoft Corp. started giving away its Internet Explorer browser, forcing Netscape to do the same with its own Navigator browser, the industry's pioneer.
Must-See Software
Without better profits to entice software firms, there will be no new, must-have software that will drive sales of more advanced personal computers, Andreessen said.
''There's no new software for taking advantage of the next generation of microprocessors,'' Andreessen said.
It would be bad for Intel Corp., the world's largest maker of microprocessors, if Andreessen is correct. The company relies on having many of its customers buy the latest, greatest chips to keep prices and profit margin high.
If Andreessen, one of the founders of Netscape, were to start a company today, he said it wouldn't be a software company. Rather, he would launch an Internet service provider. Those firms bill customers monthly for access to the Internet.
Another seer, Associate Professor Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School, also had a dark outlook on PCs. In a speech to participants that was piped in live via digital video- conferencing technology, Christensen warned that the Palm III personal organizer, and devices like it, present a threat to PCs.
Niche Market
Like other ''disruptive technologies,'' the Palm and its predecessors have incubated in a small niche market, where they have added features to become more powerful, Christensen said. The PC did the same thing when older, more powerful minicomputers dominated in the 1980s, he said. Eventually, PCs became more powerful, replacing minicomputers and leading to the demise of companies such as Digital Equipment Corp.
Most other predictions at the Gilder conference concerned ''bandwidth,'' or the capacity to pump information through phone lines, fiber-optic cable, wireless phones and satellite signals.
Most telecommunications executives agreed that there was enough fiber-optic cable going into the ground to start meeting the exploding demand for bandwidth that's come with the Internet. The problem, they said, is that it is still hard to get fast access to the Internet in the home. There is a bottleneck there because no one wants to tear up the streets to replace the copper wire that brings phone service into individual dwellings.
The alternatives are to improve copper-wire capacity with technologies such as ADSL, or asynchronous digital subscriber line; digitize the cable lines that run into millions of homes; or use cellular service.
Cable Leading
''We definitely see that cable is in the lead,'' said Henry Nicholas III, chairman and chief executive at Broadcom Corp., an Irvine, California, company that provides components to makers of cable modems, ADSL technology and networking equipment.
Nicholas said his company is a ''Swiss citizen'' or ''arms merchant'' that has no vested interest in seeing one technology win out over another. At this point, though, he said it appears that cable companies such as Tele-Communications Inc. are moving faster to get more bandwidth into the home.
Cable provides a faster connection to the Internet than regular phone lines. Moreover, it can be on all the time without incurring more charges. Nicholas said his wife wants a PC equipped with a cable modem in her kitchen, so she can have it on all the time for referring to recipes.
20:29:21 09/17/1998
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