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Technology Stocks : MEMC INT'L. (WFR -NYSE) The Sleeping Giant? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis J. who wrote (4217)	2/18/1999 10:57:00 AM
From: Link Lady	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4697

After reading this I wondered if WFR will benefit in the expected growth of the Telecommunication Industry and when if so. So telecommunications providers and equipment makers will have to transform their infrastructure from what they have invested in over the past 100 years, the study says. canoe.com FP Home REIT Report Hot Stock FP Reports Money News Technology News Columnists Company Meetings Markets Snapshot World Watch Mutual Fund News Look up ticker symbol For Thursday, February 18, 1999 Telecom sector on verge of huge growth Deregulation to drive growth at pace of computing explosion By DAVID AKIN The Financial Post A new study suggests the telecommunications industry is about to enter a phase of growth that will parallel the past two decades of growth in the computer industry. In its annual technology forecast, consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers PLC said performance and price improvements in telecommunications services will be driven by new competition in newly deregulated markets in Canada and around the world. "Computing power has increased by 1,000 times over the last 20 years, but these improvements haven't been matched in telecommunications services," said Terry Retter, principal consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers' technology centre in Menlo Park, Calif. "In the next few years, the telecommunications world will begin to travel down the same path the computing industry has been on since the late 1970s. This is partly due to deregulation and increased competition, but more importantly to the tremendous increase in the demand for bandwidth resulting from the growth of the Internet." So telecommunications providers and equipment makers will have to transform their infrastructure from what they have invested in over the past 100 years, the study says. In Toronto yesterday for the release of the 10th annual version of his firm's technology forecast, Mr. Retter painted a broad-brush vision of the future in the computing and telecommunications industries. The key predictions in the forecast included: - Consolidation and restructuring in the telecommunications industry will continue to the point that there will likely be four or five global "supercarriers" and thousands of regional and national niche players. "The ones who leverage the existing infrastructure best are going to win," Mr. Retter said. - Corporate information technology departments have successfully convinced corporate finance departments that the current levels of IT spending are normal, even though current budgets usually include additional funds for Y2K and euro currency conversions. Once Y2K spending is over, some time in the middle of next year, as much as $10-billion will be freed up for corporate IT managers to spend on developing applications and devices. y Even as computing devices get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, the large mainframe computer will remain the cornerstone of business computing, as long as manufacturers of mainframes can double the processing power every 18 months while maintaining the same price point. - Consumers will increasingly trust e-commerce transactions, thereby creating the critical mass that business planners will be unable to avoid when making strategic decisions.