--------------------
Say that again...
--------------------
"I am terrified of water, and death by drowning is my greatest fear.
Unfortunately I set them off accidentally while looking for a boiled sweet
on a rush hour train. They were crushing everybody in the carriage until
a passenger stabbed them with a pencil."
- Katsuo Katugoru, a commuter in Tokyo explaining why his "inflatable
underpants" went off on a crowded train.
"Digital information lasts forever, or five years -- whichever comes
first."
- A senior computer scientist at RAND Corp, explaining that digital
data can deteriorate, in Business Week
"It's just a total non-issue. It has a market share of zero. It has
one figurehead customer so far that doesn't seem too fired up with Java
to begin with. I don't worry about it, quite honestly."
- Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun, on HP's home-brewed Java Virtual Machine,
in TechWeb
---------------------
That Cendant thing
---------------------
Okay, not totally a technology company, but close enough for my purposes.
I've felt for a long time now that they were very strategically placed
to do well in the retail e-commerce market. The only problem was
that no one knew who they were. So, when the stock blew up this week,
I thought this might be one of those cases where bad publicity really turns
out to be good publicity. Not many people are still going to be saying
"Cendant who?" anymore. Then, of course, come the reports of just
how bad the accounting fraud really was *and* the reports that six of the
top execs sold stock in the days before the announcement. Perhaps
things are even worse than they seem... It's a sticky situation, but I
still think they're well positioned. The question now is can they
recover, and how much effort (and resources) are they going to have to
put into rebuilding (or more accurately, how much of that will come out
of their Internet efforts)?
-----------
Overhype
-----------
The SWAP standard for Workflow protocol from Sun, HP, and Netscape
among others received entirely too much press early in the week (before
there was any real news to report)... Blah blah blah Internet 2 blah blah
Al Gore blah blah millions of dollars blah (about the only interesting
thing on this topic was Qwest's decision to donate $500 million worth of
services to Internet 2)...
------------------------------------------
Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
------------------------------------------
Busy week: MicroStrategy has decided to go public (seems like
they're just crying out for Microsoft to destroy them)... Cyberian Outpost
raised $22 million in private equity this week, which they will throw away
in an online storefront... GTE beat analysts' expectations by a long shot...
Intel reported earnings that were better than expected (*after* last month's
warning, which made everyone lower their expectations) but were well short
of last year's. They also announced plans to get rid of 3,000 employees,
mostly through attrition (though the press really liked to use the word
layoff)... Seagate reports a bigger loss than expected... Read-Rite reported
a huge loss this quarter... SAP's sales this quarter nearly doubled from
last year... Rambus beats expectations and the stock goes down?... While
SportsLine USA's revenue jumped, their losses grew to over $9 million...
Compaq announced low earnings for the quarter, but said things should turn
around "later" (in response, shareholders have filed a lawsuit against
them for "misleading statements about inventory")... Unisys actually made
some money (even more than was expected)... Apple made money *again* this
quarter due to strong sales of its G3 boxes... Global Village warned that
it expects to report a loss, and places the blame totally on Apple (yes,
but didn't they see? Apple is making money)... Veritas reported better
than expected earnings... Inktomi files to go public... DEC surprised everyone
with its earnings... Preview Travel is still losing lots and lots of money...
Sun reported third quarter earnings that barely beat analysts' estimates...
Bay Networks missed earnings estimates by a long shot... 3Dfx more than
doubled earnings estimates... Excite is still losing money, just not as
much as was expected... Iomega losing a bit more money that expected...
Broadcom's IPO prices at $24 (well above the range) and trades as high
as $69 within 20 minutes of opening... @Home reported strong first quarter
sales...
------------------------------------------------
Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
------------------------------------------------
Microsoft to buy CyberCash... The "Sun to buy Netscape" rumors came
back with a vengeance... Psion Dacom is likely to make a "deal" with a
"major" OEM very soon...
--------------------------
News you could do without
--------------------------
GTE to offer ADSL (jump on the bandwagon, why don't you?)... Singapore
wants to be an international hub for electronic commerce... Excite and
Lycos announced they are going to continue to copy Yahoo! (not in those
words, exactly, but that's what they meant)... IBM gets a CFO from MCI...
Koreans blame Micron for flooding the DRAM market (oddly enough, Micron
is blaming the Koreans for the same thing)... Intel poster-company-turned-evil-enemy,
Intergraph, has won its federal lawsuit against Intel for anti-competitive
behavior. The judge claimed that Intel's CPU's and technical information
are "essential facilities" to compete effectively... Intel plans to appeal...
Meanwhile Dell has made a licensing deal with Intergraph for their workstations...
SGI files a lawsuit against Nvidia and its Riva processors for texture
mapping patent infringement (the "well, if *we're* not going to make any
money, then *you're* not going to make any money, either" strategy)...
Of course, the "big" news from SGI was what we knew all along anyway: they're
going to focus their strategy on Intel (with whom they now have a cross-licensing
agreement) and they're going to spin off MIPS... AT&T's network this
week had "serious problems" (as opposed to the other kind?) that seemed
to have worldwide implications. The biggest problems (and the loudest
screams) came from credit card companies, travel agencies, insurance companies,
and banks (oh, is that all?)... GSM digital phone technology really *is*
clonable (though, it's not particularly easy)... The U.S. is ahead of every
other country in Y2K preparedness (does this mean we have an extra week
or so before civilization ends?)... What if Intel launched a chip and no
one bought it? Intel officially launched its Celeron chip and, while
plenty of OEMs dutifully announced plans to build machines with it, most
folks expect dismal failure... On Microsoft's page talking about NT server
5.0 they admit that it will fix "tens of thousands of bugs" found in 4.0
(doesn't it occur to them that when they release a product that has *tens*
of thousands of bugs, *perhaps* it wasn't ready to be released?)... Saudi
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdul Aziz Alsaud coughs up $200 million
for 14% of Teledesic... K-tel to sell music online... Windows 98 will cost
you $109 (and possibly your soul, if you believe Lawrence Lessig)... Privacy
experts don't believe the FBI's claim that computer break-ins have increased
250% in the past two years... Infoseek bought WebChat... Netscape source
code downloaded over 100,000 times (yes, but how many times was it compiled?)...
WSJ interactive has over 200,000 subscribers... MSNBC adds a local traffic
section... NY Daily News to redo web-site... IBM announces it will launch
an e-commerce-enabled web-site (shouldn't they have done this *before*
their big "e-business" advertising campaign?)... Someone is trying to use
the Mozilla open source code to create a 1MB version of Netscape... Microsoft
admits that, well, not all of its products are really Y2K compliant, but
it shouldn't be a "big" problem - just expect some "minor inconveniences"
if you don't upgrade (wait, that's not a confession, that's a sales pitch)...
AOL hits 12 million users, as they continue on their quest to destroy the
Internet... Apple more-or-less admits it's not "looking very hard" for
a CEO to replace Steve Jobs... N2K to change its name to Music Boulevard...
The Pentagon warns (again) that the US is facing a huge threat from computer
terrorism that could shut down "vital systems"... The guy who bought a
bunch of domain names of famous companies or products and attempted to
sell them to the companies for upwards of $10,000 is found guilty of trademark
infringement... "Spam strike" on Usenet ends, without causing the downfall
of Usenet, as the strikers predicted... Apple is now accusing Exponential
of illegally selling its 45 technology patents in an auction last year
to S3 (quite amusing, considering Apple was the company that cancelled
its deal with Exponential, caused them to go bankrupt and forced the sale
of those patents)... Microsoft, Compaq, and the Computer Curriculum Corporation
are going to offer workshops for teachers in Washington D.C. on how to
use computers and the Internet in the classroom (sounds more like how to
use Microsoft in the class room, to me)...
------------
Surprises:
------------
The FCC is not going to charge IP telephony companies - yet... After
only three pump fakes, Businessweek.com *really* is charging... Macromedia
has decided to attempt to make its Flash animation product a web standard
by making it open to other software developers... The kid who got suspended
for saying bad things about a teacher on his web-site to receive a $30,000
settlement from the school (okay, anyone want to help me get suspended
for the stuff I say here?)... Media One to offer "cable telephony" in Los
Angeles... Intel to invest in digital ink... Deutsche Telekom launched
a pilot of its IP telephony services in the US... The Clinton administration
expects huge growth in electronic commerce (for some reason, this scares
me)... GeoCities names a big name in "old media", Thomas R. Evans, as CEO...
US Commerce Secretary William Daley admits that the administration's encryption
policy is failing... Merrill Lynch has decided it will not deal with firms
that it feels aren't Y2K compliant... Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale waived
all but one dollar of his salary and bonus last year... Meanwhile,
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos didn't earn any bonus above his $80,000 salary
(though if you count the stock he owns in the company, he's worth nearly
a billion)... Peapod, an online grocer, to shift from filling orders by
going to a supermarket, to a network of seven regional warehouses... Telecom
Italia buys $2 billion worth of Cable & Wireless...
-------------------------------
(Mis)Uses of Technology:
-------------------------------
Webcasting the White House Easter Egg Roll... The FTC has shut down
C&H Computing Services, an online auction house that apparently sold
computers, accepted payments, but never delivered any actual computers
(I'd like to see how they're going to defend *that* one in court)... An
ergonomics company has created a smart shoe that will change the shape
of your shoe by sensing the swelling of your feet (yes, but is it Y2K compliant?)...
Gateway 2000 wants to use AI chatterbots on its web-site to "reduce hold
time" to nothing... Speaking of AI applications, University of Colorado
Prof. Thomas Landauer, has created the "Intelligent Essay Assessor" which
will grade papers "as well as people do"... Willie Nelson to release a
song only on the Internet... CNet to rename its television program "Snap!
Presents TV.COM" in a desperate effort to get someone (anyone!) to visit
Snap!... Intermec has created what appears to be a "Palm-sized PC" on steroids.
It's a handheld that uses a 99MHz AMD 486 processor and runs Windows 95...
----------
Studies:
----------
An IDC study shows that IS execs are "confused" about what software
companies to go with as an Internet supplier. Microsoft remains dominant,
but many of the execs are less sure they want to go with MS, than in the
past... A study by the folks at Vanderbilt University finds that 94% of
web users have refused to give personal information to a web-site that
requested it, while 40% have given fake info... The top four places to
access the net: home, work, school, and the public library, according to
the MCI foundation... A study by CNet on good web design found that a web-site
costing upwards of $300 million (Disney's) was the "worst designed" whereas
one that cost $10,000 was the best. The point I thought was the most
interesting, and which most everyone else ignored, was that the winner,
Edmund's Automobile Buyer's Guides, had been *redesigned* by the time the
findings were announced... Science reported that there is a huge "digital
divide" between whites and blacks in terms of access to computer technology,
and it is most evident in high school and college students... Dataquest
predicts the PC microprocessor market will slow down this year (that must
have been a tough conclusion to reach)... SRI Consulting took a wild stab
in the dark to predict that IP telephony quality will "improve"... Deloitte
& Touche has released a study in which they recommend that manufacturing
companies should use the net... FIND/SVP has released a study showing that
more than 11.1 million Americans telecommute...
--------------
Predictions:
--------------
The hype behind Inktomi's and GeoCities public offerings will be quite
insane...
------------------------
Too much free time:
------------------------
Right. A mood ring over the Internet: http://www.chrysalis.org/oeno/testmood.htm
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