TOP

WHAT THE EXPERTS FORECAST

• Privacy Issues are "hot" and will get hotter

• The web will escape the computer and move with us into cars and devices. What will web sites look like (on small screens or personal productivity tools)?

• Portals will be personalized—just like Nike personalized sneakers

• Trading stock mania will continue. There can be an infinite number of buyers and sellers as electronic facilitation (as in the E-Bay auction model) creates large markets of buyers and sellers, eliminating middlemen. The volatility of stocks can and is being fueled by press releases flooding the market (just for the purpose of creating a "buzz" about a company.) Microsoft will spin off its games business, going public to participate in this "action."

• Violence will spread into our industry as people respond to the immense amount of pressure we are putting people under

• Intellectual property patents attempting to protect the "absurd" (as in the Amazon "one click" patent that it won) will continue, creating questions about what can and cannot be protected in the on-line world

• On-line voting can happen creating the potential for more electorate participation than ever (but how do we enable access for all?)

• There will be shakeouts in dot com companies. There will only be one dot com pet store left.

• Amazon will loose 550 million and look for a buyer in 2000

• The most unique products will use wireless application protocols (WAP) e.g. digital cameras already can send pictures over the internet to be downloaded as 35mm prints, instantly. (This is just the tip of the iceberg.)

• The battle between the TV vs. the PC will disappear and the couch potato will win. All appliances will turn into TVs. Cellular will win out over the handheld PDA. Everything will be in the phone. (Here is where there are absolute disagreements about the need for one appliance versus several personal communications devices that each do a specialized function very well)

• Wireless explodes with growth in both handheld devices and cell-phones. (The difference of opinions continues here.)

• International trade will eventually be open, free, without restrictions but that won’t be the case initially as countries try to hold back the flood with barriers that will eventually give way

• 100% uptime will become the #1 priority for e-commerce sites. Outages simply will not be accepted as consumers expect totally reliable, transaction-safe performance. The government may jump in to regulate performance. The battle for control has just begun.

• All the marketing/branding/messaging focus needs to be customer-centric. It will be harder and harder to build customer loyalty since moving on is as easy as one click away.

• Microsoft will pay for its past behavior with fines, by unbundling the browser and in publishing its pricing strategy. Another forecast—MS will divide into separate businesses.

• The Internet stock bubble will continue to froth in 2000.

• Big will combine to get bigger (e.g. portals, end to end e-commerce solutions, combining bricks and mortar with e-commerce businesses)

• Portals will be customized. Otherwise consumers will go directly to their favorite sites as access becomes easier and as they feel more comfortable navigating the web.

• This is a good year for "glue" manufacturers—meaning timing is critical for building infrastructure. Business to business information exchange must be standardized if e-commerce is to take off. The existing standard EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) must be replaced. Will the new standard be XML? Whatever is selected, time is of the essence.

• Cell phones will be the drivers of choice to the Internet. It is the ubiquitous personal tool. In `99, 33 million PCs were connected to the Internet while there were 76 million wireless subscribers. The number of subscribers is expected to reach one billion by 2002, a year earlier than originally forecast. Two compelling reasons why the phone "wins"--it is always on and it is always with you. Another important factor, phones are replaced on average every 12-months while computers remain on desktops or with owners from two to four years. Upgrades and legacy issues are much less of a problem if the "shelf life" is only one year.

• Sprint and Amazon have joined forces to offer a service to allow on-line shopping from a cell phone. However, it is slow and costly and the customer experience is likely to discourage repeat shopping. From a business perspective this is not a significant trend. From a marketing perspective, it is a very smart strategy to be first.

• To the consumer, infrastructure issues are relatively unimportant—the operating system, the hardware and the WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)—as long as it all works.

• For the entrepreneur, right now, fortunes are being made by starting businesses that solve infrastructure problems. Plumbing has never been exciting, but it is essential.

• The ease of access and availability of information raise important social issues. How do we protect privacy? How do we deal with children who now have TVs in their rooms and who soon will be able to go on-line as easily as turning on the TV? Will specific economic, social and ethnic groups in our society have equal access to the Internet if they don’t now? Will, for example, low income African Americans or Hispanics find ways, as net access becomes more ubiquitous, to go online-- or will they remain economically disadvantaged if they cannot connect? Can we avoid creating a society of information have and have-nots?

• While on-line retailers are clamoring for more bandwidth to enrich the shopping experience, there is another market imperative as web access moves to handheld devices. These personal devices have limited ability to download information and small display screens. Web sites will evolve to offer a spectrum of experiences varying from light to full flavor—with the visitor choosing whichever one is appropriate.

• Handheld devices will find niche applications, such as checking for sports results, stock activity and wagering. Businesses will use these tools for real time communication and data exchange with employees "in the field."

• Europe is ahead of us in the use of wireless technology to share voice and data messages. They have evolved to a universal standard while our market is fragmented. In Europe, two billion messages per month are exchanged. Recipients can reply to e-mails with short voice messages or tap out a response using the phone keypad. Cost for data transmission is very inexpensive compared to phone calls. In the US we have not yet figured out a business model that allows phone companies to make a profit on data transmission.

• Wireless data access will happen and once we can rely on it, cell phone usage will double from an average of 100 to 200 minutes per month.

• The Bluetooth initiative announced at Comdex is a low powered radio system that allows appliances to talk to each other. This is an attempt to promote a standard to facilitate wireless data exchange. This initiative, if successful, can have tremendous impact on the wireless industry.

• Personal productivity devices will not merge. Functions for voice and calendaring, for example, require different tools. Phones are getting smaller and smaller (and the market wants that) while checking e-mail and looking up appointments require a larger screen and the ability to input data. As long as devices talk to each other, there is no need for just one tool that compromises functionality for the sake of convenience.

• Who owns the wireless customer? The general consensus was the carrier does, as the only common point of contact.

• Eventually, industry consolidations will leave only two or three competing wireless carriers (that are not compatible), but each will have a robust national network

• Wireless in the next year will be about simple transactions—good communication between the desktop and cell phone—low bandwidth applications, e-mail, stock and travel—and the emergence of two national data networks, Sprint and ? (not AT&T).