Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Michael D. Thomas" <mdthomas AT mindspring.com>]

Was gazing in to my crystal ball tonight (which has an OS based on
open standards) and was reflecting on this week's discussion about
standards, MS, good business and bad business.

Came up with the following reasons that AOL/Time Warner will drive the
growth of network computing over the next several years:

* MS, Dell and the other big PC retailers are colluding in a mature
industry. No reason to expect any innovation there until/if the
government takes the correct steps to break the collusion. (I'm not
holding my breath that they will do it and do it correctly, though I
think what they did with AT&T shows some promise);
* Over 50% of Americans have Internet access;
* A large number of Americans don't and a far larger number of the
world's people don't;
* The penetration of the remainder of the market will be hard -- the
number of people that can afford a computer and want one is growing
smaller;
* When I signed up for RoadRunner, they brought me the cable modem for
free -- why couldn't TimeWarner bring me a low priced, network
appliance with web, email and a small hard drive?
* Oh... that's right, no machine exists at a viable price point;
* A machine *can* exist at that price point, as soon as you stop
thinking of a Personal Computer as running a bloated,
everything-and-the-kitchen-sink OS;
* AOL/Time Warner can drive demand for their services by having such a
machine created;
* AOL/Time Warner have the marketing reach and marketing
economies-of-scale to reach the non-online audience;
* AOL/Time Warner have a wire in the homes of many of the non-online
and have them as customers already;
* They can create the volume demand to bring the price point for a
Network Appliance device down really far;
* If a customer decides they want a "grown-up" computer they just
return the Internet appliance (just like cable customers return their
set top boxes to the local office already -- another example of
infrastructure already in place);
* AOL/Time Warner benefit by being the default ISP, but AOL learned
long ago that the walled garden network service doesn't work, so they
will bring people on to the 'real' web;
* More people on the web, more demand for web sites/services, more
happy web developers;
* ...and we all get to watch a historic corporate clash of the titans.
Ballmer/Gates vs. Case and the utility. Who wins?

Thoughts?