Observations

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=210 BGCOLOR="#CC9922" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="03dd2962dakdei.gif"> <div> <B>Some random thoughts from the conference</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=452 colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>PC Forum 2000 Album</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" >     |    </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#0000BF" FACE="Arial" ><A HREF="default.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PC Forum 2000 Album"><U> home</U></A></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="firstnight.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="First Night"><U>First Night</U></A>   |   <A HREF="monday.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Monday"><U>Monday</U></A>   |   <A HREF="tuesday.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tuesday"><U>Tuesday</U></A>   |   <A HREF="wednesday.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Wednesday"><U>Wednesday</U></A>   |   <B>Observations</B></div> <div> Observations</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Wireless is very hot and useful.</B> The wireless LAN adapters we used were great. The 1Gb of backbone IP connectivity it went to was great. The GoAmerica email/web browser pagers given out were useful. Outside the US, where PCs are not that common and cell phones are, wireless Internet connectivity will be huge -- even without much in the way of graphics.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Everything is still growing.</B> Backbone/fiber technology is growing in speed/capacity at 2X every 9 months, faster than Moore's law. Search techniques keep getting obsoleted by bigger disks and faster CPUs that make new algorithms possible. In both hardware and software you have to plan for frequent obsolescence. All of the Internet public companies together are worth just 3 times one of the large "regular" companies (like GE).</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The rich in the industry are looking how to give back to society.</B> There was a panel just on how we can make the rest of the world better. Our dinner speaker brought it up to great response.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Identity, brand, and trust are important issues.</B> "Who are you in terms of your biases?", "What do I know about you that says I should trust you?", and "How do I find the 'you' I trust?" were issues that came up time and again.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Microsoft needs to say why it is relevant.</B> That was the point of Ballmer's talk. Microsoft was rarely mentioned as a major issue in the looming way they used to be.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Infrastructure will matter.</B> Infrastructure that adds value will continue to be built and money will be made there. Bandwidth, bandwidth, and more bandwidth. The more we get the more we'll find valuable uses for it and the bigger the market will get.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">Content and the channels to deliver it should be held by different companies.</B> It is bad for innovation when the monopoly owners of a channel control the content that it carries.</div> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Symb075c00b700c800000000.gif" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The government has always been involved and will continue to be involved.</B> Patents, breaking up AT&T, laws, judicial decisions, etc. It's not a question of whether there is regulation, said Prof. Lessig, but only a question of <I>what form</I> of regulation.</div> <bR> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=28 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> < <A HREF="wednesday.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Wednesday"><U>Previous</U></A>       > /  <A HREF="http://www.bricklin.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.bricklin.com"><U>www.bricklin.com</U></A>  /  (c) Copyright 2000 Daniel S. Bricklin, All Rights Reserved</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>