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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (18682)	4/23/1999 3:41:00 PM
From: Moonray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 22053

Network Companies' Future Is Bleak - Report NewsBytes - April 23, 1999: 12:49 a.m. ET LONDON, ENGLAND (NB) -- A survey carried out by Citigate, a UK public relations firm, has revealed that networking firms will play a relatively small role in the technology industry's future. Suzy Frith, the firm's chairwoman, said that 450 managing and marketing directors working for IT vendors in the UK were surveyed. Only three percent of respondents thought that networking vendors would be the key drivers of the IT sector in five years. This put them behind software manufacturers, IT services and consultancy companies, telecom operators and Internet services companies. 87 percent of respondents thought that Microsoft will still be the dominant player in 2004, although 23 percent think "a cable or satellite media company" will dominate. Only seven percent voted for Sun but Oracle polled 22 percent of the votes -- comfortably outpacing SAP with 13 percent. When asked to rate the factors which will be most important for dominant companies in the IT sector in five years' time, "offering innovative products and services" came out on top, closely followed by "strong branding and reputation." "The ability for organizations to reinvent themselves" was seen to be less important than strong leadership or a strong share price. Bill Gates is viewed as the perfect spokesman by most (18 percent), although a significant proportion (13 percent) would prefer Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam as their "perfect spokesperson for one day," with former U.S. President John F. Kennedy (10 percent) equal with Sun's Scott McNealy (10 percent). Oracle's Larry Ellison (three percent) was less popular than Winston Churchill (8%), but polled equally with Tony Blair, the British PM. "Our survey shows an interesting shift in the IT industry's perception of the future," said Frith. She added that software and services companies are seen as the industry drivers over the next few years with hardware and infrastructure vendors declining in significance -- despite the imminent e-commerce explosion. "Our survey would seem to show that for networking companies to survive, they will have to come up with a new approach," she said. Citigate's Web site is at ctech-lon.co.uk . Nothing like using a poll of 450 Englishmen by a PR firm to get the straight skinny on what the future holds. o~~~ O