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To: MileHigh who wrote (19955)	5/11/1999 7:18:00 PM
From: Dave B	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 93625

OTOTOTOT MileHigh, I have a feeling that we might be splitting hairs. I'd say we both agree that appliances have and will continue to proliferate (I have a full-funtion oven that I could use to make toast, but I use the toaster because it's simpler and better suited to making toast). I agree that MSFT and INTC need to continue to drive into this area (and they are -- witness INTC's StrongARM directions, MSFT's deal with AT&T for set-top boxes, and the joint effort to react to the NC). We'd probably also agree that there are a lot of products that fail, even though they address some problem, because a better solution exists that solves the problem better. To be successful, I just think that most of these small appliances (defined as hand-holdable) will be driven by voice-commands rather than keyboards or pens. Or I should say that I believe the ones that accept voice input will be the successful ones long-term. The Palm Pilot has been successful with handwritten input because it was the "first", but how many funky alphabets are you going to learn? You'll be screaming for something that recognizes speech by the time you get to the 4th or 5th custom alphabet. Why would you use a tiny little screen on a phone when you could simply speak a command into it or have it read you the message? One area where we'd probably disagree is that people are going to have devices that off-load the processing power to some distant system at your ISP's site (the NC concept). If you rely on your ISP for your applications, then if your connection goes down, how are you going to write letters, look up recipes, et cetera? How comfortable do you feel having your tax data stored on a system at your ISP? The PC has provided an amazing set of capabilities along with secure storage of your personal data. If your ISP goes down, all you lose is your ability to surf -- you can still do all the other things. Incidentally, someone PM'ed me that only 700,000 WebTVs have been sold. That's a miniscule number. It tells me that the public is not exactly rushing out to buy something that let's you surf the web over the TV. In fact, if e-machines is already 4th in retail PC sales, they've probably sold more systems than that. The WebTV box numbers may grow by default if suddenly the box you get from your cable company lets you surf the web (and they will), but then you're saying that the value of this feature is zero, since you won't be paying anything additional for this feature. At least I wouldn't. If I'm going to do any surfing, I won't be using the TV until I have a High Definition TV--the resolution of a standard TV won't allow for much of the web page to be displayed. You'd be scrolling all day. The time-share concept does make sense for some segments like ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software for small and medium-sized businesses where the cost of installing and managing the software is significant relative to the resources of the business. But word processing, spreadsheet, and database software is so cheap that it adds virtually no cost to a PC and why would you want a limited function box when you can have a full-function box for just a little more? Finally, I don't believe that every possible technological capability will be successful (and we'd probably agree on that). A year and a half ago I bought a set of videophones (from 8x8) as Christmas gifts for all our distant relatives. The phones hook up to the phone line and TV and turn the TV into a videophone. A great concept. The thinking was that the kids could see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on. They work great, but we probably haven't been on-line in the last 6 months in spite of numerous phone calls back and forth. I can't explain why, but somehow it hasn't turned out to be that compelling. Maybe it's because watching grandpa sit in his chair on the TV isn't that exciting and the kids don't seem to care much. Maybe having the caller on the TV splits your concentration from the conversation. In any event, the best advantage seems to be in allowing the grandparents to see the kids (since they're changing more). But even the grandparents aren't calling to get on the videophone, so maybe it's not that good for them. I haven't recommended the phones to anyone (even though the technology works great) because the value appears to be limited. I haven't seen any displays for the 8x8 phones since we bought them so they must not be doing very well. Anyway, enough rambling for now. What do you think? Are we pretty close, or far apart? Dave