May 17 - 23, 1999

from the Up-To-Date dept

Bill Gates, Star Wars, our very own Palm VII app, recognition from IBM, crazy stock stuff, and all the usual news...
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UP-TO-DATE
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The not always serious,
not always weekly update
on the High-Tech Industry
May 17th - May 23rd, 1999
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Skipping out on Bill Gates' CEO Meeting
in order to catch the Phantom Menace
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Goings and Comings...
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Techdirt's Up-To-Date is still on its "reduced" schedule, and will most definitely be missing in action over the next few weeks. I hope (really) to return to a somewhat more regular schedule in mid-June. However, the web page will still be going strong, made stronger by some recent news, covered in the next section.

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Techdirt on the Web
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First off, the Palm VII is making its "sorta" debut today (Monday), but only for those of you in NY - or if you're so desperate for one that you ordered one from NY. Well, for you early adopter types, we wanted to make sure that you felt all your Techdirt needs fulfilled while happily clipping away, and therefore created the Techdirt query app for your convenience. http://www.palm.net/apps/users/main/1,1019,0,00.html?categoryID=9&ACTION=CAT Special thanks to Dennis Yang for creating it in his spare time while we all know he had more important stuff to do (hope you don't get in trouble for that one).

Second, somehow or another the fine folks at IBM discovered Techdirt last week and decided to feature it on their IBM.net web page's computing channel. They say nice things about the page, so my ego is flying high for the time being: http://www.ibm.net/channels/computing/computingfeature.html

They claim it will remain up for about a month, but we'll see.

Keep up to date with the latest news daily at https://www.techdirt.com/

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Say that again...
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"I just cannot be burdened by the obsolete idea of creating a name and folder for a file whenever I create it. I can't have my nose in the dirt of all these obsolete details."
- David Gelernter, Yale University computer scientist, on his "new" proprietary system that lets you organize your files by time-stamps. He expects to sell this?

"When we look at pricing, we're not thinking about the competition."
- Carl Gish, Amazon.com bookstore manager. Um, Carl, hate to tell you this, but if you're not thinking about the competition when you think about pricing, you're not really thinking about pricing.

"Do you know why people like me own this stock? We own it because we have no choice. You either participate in the mania or you go out of business."
- Roger McNamee, of Integral Capital Partners, explaining how to get rich by following the crowd.

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Earnings Reports, IPOs and the like
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Dell's earnings up 42%, but people are still worried about margins... eToys had a spectacular IPO (at least they're a real company) and are now valued higher than Toys R Us and Mattel... MP3.com to go public (hypefest coming)... Microsoft invests in InsWeb... Softbank making more money than expected but it's *all* because they sold off some Yahoo! stock (not exactly a long-term growth strategy)... HP beats earnings estimates easily... Lycos barely beats estimates and is (guess what?) still losing money... Drugstore.com, with an operating history of 3 months, files for an IPO (hype magnet)... NCI changes their name to Liberate (no, we swear that Larry Ellison has nothing, *nothing*, to do with us) and files to go public... Acting more like a stock really should was TheGlobe.com, which feel sharply following a secondary offering close on the heels of a split...

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Rumors, Conspiracies etc. of the week...
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The new name registrars for domain name competition haven't started selling domains yet because Network Solutions provided them with crappy, buggy software (and people are surprised)... Microsoft (man, they're everywhere) and Bertelsmann looking to buy into Deutsche Telekom's cable network... Lots of folks from a2b jumping ship to go to many-lived Reciprocal now that they've been backed by Microsoft and have completely switched their business model (again)... Teledesic might be dead in the, um, sky?... Sun looking to buy Computer Sciences Corp... PeopleSoft getting ready to name new CEO...

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News you should have read elsewhere
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US West and Global Crossing to merge (yet another telecom merger) simply because "they can"... Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and Borders.com all offering NYTimes bestsellers at 50% off and are all planning on losing money by doing so (come on, they should take a hint from all the free PC offerings: they're not selling books, they're selling stock - they should give away the books and increase traffic)... Microsoft and Xerox team up for knowledge management (*insert your own joke here*)... Europe's plans to make sure that nothing you do online is even remotely private...

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News you could do without
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Datek censured and fined by the SEC (and who says internet companies can't be trusted?)... Enron to create bandwidth exchange for buying and selling capacity on a variety of networks based on demand... Healtheon and WebMD, after much speculation, have decided to merge, with Microsoft pouring in a little extra cash to make sure they have a say in things... MTV buys SonicNet and The Box... Microsoft has a team of 10 folks who follow Linux (yes, but do they add bug fixes back for the collective good?)... Paul Allen's Mercata finally launches. I've seen the idea before, but I've never seen it work. I also find it interesting that they really (really!) seem to believe that the site will become the world's largest e-commerce site mainly by "word of mouth" (good luck)... Cendant finally got rid of Match.com by selling it off to TicketMaster/CitySearch (becoming the "social life portal"?)... Amazon.com invests in HomeGrocer.com (yes, but will the best selling vegetables be 50% off?)... CNet launches its online auction site... 4.6? Who needs a 4.6? It's time for Netscape - the prequel... Staples is investing $7 million in Register.com (Why? My only guess is that it's got a .com and someone must be related to someone there)... eBay buys a car auction site and an internet credit card processing company (wonder where that's going)... CDNow and Music Boulevard are now (really, seriously) one site... AOL's new Shop@AOL will "set a new industry standard for consumer convenience" (do they believe their own marketing hype?)... MCI wants to go into wireless, oh wait, no it doesn't, but then again maybe it does (nothing like a clear strategy to help with the planning)... PlayMedia, who seems *desparate* to destroy the MP3 standard they make their living off of, is now suing MP3.com as well... Sun advertises new DataCenter.com, but doesn't own the domain... iMacs no longer in the top 5 of retail computer sales (*cough* fad *cough*)... eBay goes down for seven hours (again)...

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Surprises:
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Drugstore CVS jumped into online commerce in a big way this week by buying Soma.com (I just wonder which company is going to have more influence over the other)... The MiningCo.com (following on its recent, pointless name change from The Mining Company) has ditched that moniker altogether and is now About.com... Meanwhile, difficult to remember nth Dimension has changed their name to Point.com (as in what's the point.com?)... CNet gets a President? (Is Halsey lonely?)...

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(Mis)Uses of Technology:
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U.S. Gov't creates a search site that will let you search through all U.S. Government web sites (I initially made fun of this because they were charging for it, but apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that was a ridiculous idea. Within hours the site went down and was "re-evaluated". It's now back for free)... Burger King to give out internet access with meals... A Publix supermarket in Florida has set up iMacs where kids can "work on their homework" (yeah, sure) while their parents shop... A satellite built by Boston University students doesn't seem to work right... However, the nuclear reactor built by Chicago University students in one day (!) for a scavenger hunt, appears to be fully functional... Beyond.com is using streaming video to demo software from their site...

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Studies:
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According to the OECD, nearly 80% of all web pages are in English, and that number goes up when looking at secure servers... The latest numbers from PC Data show that sales of PCs increased 21% in April, but overall revenue was 2.2% lower as sub-$1,000 PCs made up an even higher percentage (71%) of sales... Online advertisements related to computers still make up the bulk of internet advertising, but it's a smaller percentage than in the past, according to InterWatch... The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association believes that nearly 13% of sales will come from the internet within 3 years... The latest Media Metrix numbers show that Lycos is slipping, and all of its sites no longer have more page views than Yahoo! (as they did last month). Actually, all of the portals are losing ground to Yahoo!... A new study from Reuters shows that 42% of managers believe that they suffer poor health due to information overload, while nearly two-thirds of those surveyed believe it effects their social and personal relationships as well (socially inept managers blaming technology? Nah, couldn't be.)...

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Overhype
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HP's E-speak... Hushmail as an encrypted Hotmail...

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Predictions:
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Michael Ovitz's plans to create an online superstore for movies, videos and games won't go very far...

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Too much free time:
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Have a laugh at the expense of others: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ffortes/stuff/nerd/

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Up To Date is written by Mike Masnick from whatever news he hears from
whatever sources they happen to come from. It is not intended for any uses
other than as one of many possible ways to follow what's going on in the
hi-tech industry. I certainly wouldn't rely on it as your only source of
info. And, of course, my comments may not accurately reflect reality. Finally,
an explicit warning about investing: I do not, under any circumstance, consider
any piece of information in this newsletter "investment advice" and neither should you.

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