--------------------
Say that again...
--------------------
"Every business that plans to compete in the Internet economy needs
to have an Internet commerce strategy."
- George Colony, President of Forrester Research on why they've created
a new e-commerce group.
"I haven't seen anybody yet show me any profits on it."
- Neil Rudenstine, Harvard University President, on why he's not happy
with the school's investment in Information Technology. Two comments
for Dr. Rudenstine: (1) You're running an educational institution and (2)
Bit impatient, aren't you?
"VCs don't sign NDAs."
- Andrew Anker, from August Capital, on ZDTV
-----------------------
Operating System stuff
-----------------------
Apparently Microsoft has figured out a way to not miss deadlines: have
the government trying to force you to miss the deadline. Now that
the DOJ is actively fighting Microsoft, MS has announced that Windows 98
will be available to those who buy computers up to 10 days before the official
launch... PC Week says Windows 98 "not worth it"... RedHat has announced
Linux 5.1 and apparently this time they're focusing on the every day consumer
rather than the every day geek...
------------------------------------------
Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
------------------------------------------
Netscape surprised lots of folks by posting break-even numbers (of
course, it seems pretty obvious that they fudged these numbers - they just
"adjusted" their financial calendar for no real reason. In doing
so, they left a dangling January where quite a bit of loss seems to have
been hidden)... 3DLabs warns that it will lose money this quarter... Network
Solutions not doing particularly well as the White House suggests that
maybe domain names should be controlled by a non-profit agency... Alliance
Semiconductor warns of expected loss for the current quarter... Actuate
announces plans to go public...
------------------------------------------------
Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
------------------------------------------------
SGI to lose the Nintendo MIPS account (though there seems to be some
back room dealings going on to prevent this)...
--------------------------
News you could do without
--------------------------
Excite upgrades their search engine (only one week after Infoseek said
the same, and Yahoo unveiled plans to switch to Inktomi technology)...
IBM to offer Celeron based PCs (and I wonder what happens to these if IBM
does decide to buy AMD)... In the meantime, it appears that IBM is very
happily engaged in hedging on all fronts. While it still claims it
will support AIX on PowerPCs, it's apparently working on a Merced port...
At the same time Apple and IBM have been rumored to be rushing with their
new G4, and hope to introduce it earlier than originally planned... WorldCom
to handle GE's network traffic... Sprint has agreed to take ownership control
over Sprint PCS (away from three cable companies who've been involved with
it) and spin off the unit later this year... Would you believe it?
Both Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy made sure to bash Microsoft this week
(very original, guys)... Gateway and NEC both got a bit bolder this week
in publicizing their non-Microsoft strangled computers... Gateway also
announced plans to offer a system that you can buy with monthly installments
(for you deadbeats out there) including Internet access ("Would you like
a PC with your Internet Access?" - yes, I'd say we're getting around to
turning PCs into commodities)... AMD did, indeed, release their new K6-2,
but without much OEM support. Furthermore, they are breaking their
self-imposed rule of pricing the chips 25% less than the comparable Intel
offering based on their claim that there is no "comparable Intel offering"
(by which they must be referring to the fact that Intel actually can produce
the chips they claim they have)... Cable & Wireless snapped up MCI's
Internet backbone and ISP service this week, as MCI worked to appease the
powers that be (or, rather, the powers that will stop them from getting
their WorldCom stock)... People easily breaking into to AOL accounts?
My oh my... Take that! HP sues Xerox for patent infringement not long after
Xerox sued HP for patent infringement (wonderful folks, those lawyers)...
AOL agrees to pay $2.6 million to 44 states for misleading subscribers
(What, were they supposed to tell them straight off that AOL sucks?)...
Ziff Davis launched its online market research site, where users can pay
for market research. Of course, in doing so, ZD accidentally locked
out the latest version of Netscape Communicator, telling people they really
ought to get the latest version of Netscape Communicator... NetPresenter
(no, I've never heard of them either) has released the latest version of
its "Pointcast-like" software (in other words: "software that seems cool
to us, but no one really uses it"?)... In a deal between wanna-be portals,
Netscape Netcenter and CNET have agree to share content... Folks on slashdot
turn absolutely insane when InfiniteOS uses the wrong open source licensing
scheme (calm down, fellas, it's really not *that* important)... Barnes
& Noble has redesigned its web site (so, still not gaining on Amazon,
then?)... TheStreet.com realizes that, hey, they really do need a CEO...
AT&T decides to increase out-of-state call charges by 5% to pay for
federally mandated fees. The feds aren't happy... Japan delays plans
to launch digital TV broadcasting by three years... Zulu-Tek, the company
that made bold claims saying they were bigger than DoubleClick has a new
owner, as the lead stockholder has bailed out... True North is merging
Modem Media with Poppe Tyson despite recent vehement denials that this
would ever happen... Netcom CEO resigns only 6 months after selling Netcom
to ICG... Video game makers deny any possible link between their games
and youth violence (I think they should claim the reverse: video games
give kids a chance to "let out" their anger and aggression on "virtual
beings")... More delays with Divx (tough to launch when no one will support
them, eh?)... Yet another dumb bill concerning spam in Congress, and yet
another flurry of Netizen activity ("this time let's... turn our pages
pink! Yeah! What a great idea!")... Microsoft has suddenly
found politics and they're dealing with it the same way they deal with
everything. They've donated nearly half a million to both major political
parties this year (more than they've donated in the last six years, combined)...
------------
Surprises:
------------
Now, here's a biggy: Intel delays Merced (this would fall under the
category of "not a good thing" for Intel)... Hyperion and Arbor software
merge (a necessity if they are really planning on competing in this market
- the question remains however, if this is enough)... HP buys Samsung Electronic's
share in their joint venture... USWeb made news this week that did not
involve them buying another company. No, they're apparently going
to do some real work now for GE and NBC interactive... Business Week to
offer free email (are they discovering that the simple subscription model
moved to the net doesn't really work?)... The poor CompuServe manager in
Germany who was found guilty because people transferred porn using CompuServe.
This happened even though the prosecution gave up the case, saying he didn't
deserve to be found guilty. Amazing how dim-witted the people in
charge can be... Byte to stop printing a hard copy. Not sure about
the online copy (end of an era)... Bill Gates' second "CEO Summit" didn't
seem to garner the same type of media hype that the first one did... Ram
Shriram leaves Netscape to run Junglee...
-------------------------------
(Mis)Uses of Technology:
-------------------------------
New CD-ROM technology for storing 400 gigs on a CD the size of a penny...
So, it turns out that the technology behind internet access via your electric
lines has a major caveat: street lamps broadcast your data (I'm surprised
the FBI and the NSA haven't come out in full support for this one yet)...
Motorola is developing hybrid ADSL/regular modems... The US Postal Service
has developed small radio transmitters that can be put on letters for tracking
purposes... PalmPilot on steroids (http://www.research.digital.com/wrl/itsy/)...
----------
Studies:
----------
According to Forrester's new group, the commerce software market will
grow to $3.8 billion dollars over the next 4 years... The data warehousing
market had revenue of $1.47 billion last year (34% greater than 1996) according
to Dataquest, though that growth is expected to slow to 22% this year...
A study by ZD Market Intelligence shows Netscape losing more market share.
The most ridiculous part, though, was the ZDNet story accompanying the
announcement which made it sound like Netscape was winning simply because
it still had over 50% of the market (trends, apparently, mean nothing to
these brilliant reporters)... Dataquest popped in again this week to let
us know that 2.4 million handheld computers were bought last year, 1 million
of which were PalmPilots... Inverse Network Technologies rankings of ISP
performance based on dial-in capability continues to rank IBM at the top,
tied with Erols, as AOL continues to fall in connectivity reliability...
-----------
Overhype
-----------
Yes, yes, yes, we know the government is planning on taking action
against Intel. Now, if everyone would just stop reporting on it like
it's some big secret and let's see if the DOJ actually does something...
Lots of hype about the K6-2 and how it could be an Intel-killer.
This sounds vaguely familiar. AMD has yet to prove they've solved
their yield problems, even if they did sucker IBM into helping them out...
--------------
Predictions:
--------------
Too many people offering free email. Who really wants an email
account from Business Week? HotMail and Yahoo!Mail are doing well,
but it seems to be for the same reason: it's a convenient way to be able
to check email from anywhere. Otherwise, people hate it because it's
slow and the interface isn't nearly as simple to use as your standard email
software. Some of these FreeMail offers need to go away... More intense
branding in the portal world. I'm still waiting for any of the so-called
"portals" to come out with their own version of Mozilla. Just think,
if you were using YahooScape, you could be dealing with advertisements
that pay Yahoo! money no matter where you surf!...
------------------------
Too much free time:
------------------------
I don't want to know what the person behind this one was thinking:
http://www.3dom.com/pastlife.htm
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