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To: gnuman who wrote (75717)	3/8/1999 10:52:00 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

Gene,>>>re: W/W PC penetration ... One of the problems is we tend to look at raw numbers and not demographics. Over half of the world population has serious issues of infra-structure, discretionary spending and need. A good example is India, a country with 1/6th of the World population. (930 million). Yet Intel estimates PC sales to India at 1.5 Million units in the ending year.<<< Another problem is how you interpret the raw numbers and demographics. You can't really use any of the old metrics to project the future with respect to the WWW. The 40% penetration of the Internet into US homes has occurred in the last five years. Doesn't that suggest to you that there is something very big going on and that it is radically different than anything that has ever happened before? IMO, at a minimum, the Internet will have a greater impact on the US economy than the establishment of the intercontinental railroad - for starters. The Internet will impact virtually everyone in the US in some way - and impact a large number of people economically. It will create enormous numbers of high paying jobs and for a few create enormous wealth. If we just allow ourselves to look with an open mind, we see this happening right now. Is there any signs that we are reaching a top? Even if there is a slowing, imo, it will only be a temporary consolidation before another major movement upwards. Wrt the rest of the world, will they allow the US to lap the field - so to speak - without a response? And, wrt to India, in particular, they have been building up an enormous reservoir of human capital in the past decade or more. They produce more engineers, in absolute numbers, than we do. Remember, after WWII ended, when Japan and Germany started to rebuild, they had virtually no infrastructure - all they had was a huge reservoir of human capital. It took them less than 20 years to catch up and surpass the rest of the world - excluding the United States. Is it possible for 10% of India's population to achieve the equivalent of a US middle class standard of living within the next five years? There are projections, if I am not mistaken, that the economy of China will surpass that of the US within the next decade! (Of cource, China has 4 times the number of people and their standard of living will still only be one fourth that of the US). But, is it possible that they will have greater PC sales (in absolute numbers) than in the US? The question of one billion connected computers, in my mind then, is only a matter of when and not if it will happen. I think your inquiry will be more useful if you focused on how, when, and who will make it happen. Regards, Mary