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.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : ProNetLink...PNLK...Click here to enter -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: xyz who wrote (10091)	2/15/1999 9:52:00 PM
From: xyz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 40688

In the December 98 issue for World Trade magazine which is helping to put on the IBE99 is the following predictions: Technology Five Predictions for 1999 A peek at our high-tech crystal ball By Eric J. Adams From the price of notebook computers to the potentially cataclysmic Year 2000 problem, here are five predictions on the state of technology as it just might look this time next year. 1. Notebooks break the $1,000 barrier. Every once in a while hardware capabilities actually catch up to software de-mands. When this happens, computer prices fall. And it's happening right now. Software demands from business applications have remained fairly steady since Microsoft Windows 95 hit the scene. Intel has had no trouble catching up. That's why we're seeing $799 desktop models from the likes of Hewlett-Pack-ard and Compaq, once purveyors of expensive business PCs. This hardware-software dynamic is also why we'll see fully-powered notebook computers break the $1,000 barrier by the year 2000. Notebooks have traditionally been priced 50% to 100% higher than desktops due to engineering requirements and small market share. Now engineering costs have largely been recouped and user demand is high enough so that vendors can pump out notebooks in commodity quantities. By this time next year you'll find full-sized multimedia notebooks with active matrix screens and plenty of hard drive space and processing power for $999 and under. And watch for Window-based handhelds to break the $400 barrier as well. For under $1,500 you'll be able to pick up a desktop-replacement notebook and a little satellite machine for those jaunts that require little more than e-mail and Internet hooks-up. 2. E-commerce beats all predictions (except this one). Pick a market research firm, any market research firm. They are all estimating the amount of money that will change hands in the next year from buying and selling over the web. Consumers will spend $10 billion in 1999 and business $134 billion, according to the Yankee Group, Inc. of Boston, Mass. Predictions from other market research firms range up to $750 billion. This is the year that e-commerce jumps off the charts; the year consumers feel comfortable keyboarding in their credit card numbers; and the year businesses make the web the de facto document exchange channel. With bandwidth growing and more users logging on each day, the e-commerce juggernaut will be impossible to stop. International e-commerce will lag behind, but not by much. And those companies not ready with an Internet storefront will suffer dramatically. 3. Videoconferencing makes minor gains. Way back in 1964, AT&T began touting picture phones at the New York World's fair. Every year since has been hailed as "the year of videoconferencing." 1999 is the "make-or-break year" for videoconferencing because all the re-quired technology is finally in place: Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports for fast throughput to the computer; the Internet to carry the image around the world; compression schemes to get the image across the Internet quickly enough; and end-user packages from the likes of US Robotics and Kodak that make installation a snap at un-der $200 a seat. So what's the catch? Do you really want to be at the end of a video meeting when you are relaxing in your hotel room after a hard day on the road? Do you want people to see what's on the wall behind you at your office? 1999 will certainly be the year of videoconferencing for those with specific videoconferencing needs, some world traders among them, but it's not the next e-mail by a long shot. 4. International telecom alliance frenzy heats up. AT&T and British Telecom drew front-page headlines earlier this year when they announced the information of a new jointly-owned company to service the international telecommunications needs of multinational corporations. The announcement was on the heels of similar announcements by Sprint, MCI, and AT&T itself with other partners. Just as Regional Bell Operating Companies in this country are racing to consolidate, so are the world's telephone com- panies. The motivation behind the all-iance frenzy is clear. Corporations are racing to compete globally and are demanding globally integrated communications services. Alliance carriers can provide - theoretically, at least - a single source for customer contact; flexible sin-gle-currency billing; worldwide discounts; four-digit dialing to offices, integrated and voice, data and Internet services. 5. Y2K fizzles in the U.S., sizzles in emerging markets. Several experts are predicting a no-show for the infamous Year 2000 bug which many say will cause massive electrical blackouts, defense nightmares, and financial meltdowns. According to these experts, the Y2K fallout won't happen here in part because the problem has been over-hyped to begin with. Secondly, enough dollars have been spent on the problem to correct it in areas where it really does exist. Internationally, the problem will be more troublesome, however, since many emerging nations don't have the re-sources to correct Y2K deficiencies in legacy systems that control infrastructure, such as transportation, central banking systems, stock markets, etc. If you have operations in countries like Brazil and Malaysia, your Y2K task force should be well into their work. The last thing you need to wake up to on January 1, 2000 is company paralysis of global proportions. Sidebar: TIMELINE 1990: The world comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the commercial provider of Internet dial-up access. 1991: World-Wide Web (www) officially introduced. 1992: The term "Surfing the Internet" is coined. Number of web sites: 50. 1993: First graphical Web browser, Mosaic, is introduced. www proliferates at a 341,634% annual growth rate. 1994: First cyberbank and first spam. Number of web sites: 3,000. 1995: The first official Internet wiretap. Number of web sites: 25,000. 1996: The www browser war begins between Netscape and Microsoft. CIA hacked. Number of web sites: 300,000. 1997: China requires users and ISPs to register with the police. Germany cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on Compuserve. Saudi Arabia confines Internet access to universities and hospitals. Number of web sites: 1.2 million. 1998: First U.S. electronic postal stamp. Number of web sites: over 5 million. Source: The Internet Society, Reston, VA. Based in Petaluma, Calif., Adams writes about global small-business technology. By the way, International Vice President of the NFL, Don Barber is the giving the Keynote address at the IBE 99.