Re: Network computers

<i>>I had lunch with Larry Ellison of Oracle on Thursday. ...</i>
<i>>Personally, I think that, even if he's right, he has the wrong hardware</i>
<i>>design. I'd rather see a box without a TV screen, that can be attached to</i>
<i>>EXISTING TVs, and swapped or upgraded in the field. I also note that one</i>
<i>>would have multiple such boxes in the home.</i>

Funny you should come up with this -- we used to call it Videotex (or
Viewdata if you were English) in the early/mid-80s. For all that Videotex
was trashed in the US for being too simplistic and too slow, it did
introduce a lot of people to on-line services such as email, home banking
and airline reservations.

As someone actively involved from 1982 to 1987 in setting up and selling
Videotex services, it did meet 2 primary requirements that I believe still
exist for any service to become ubiquitous:
1. Uses things that everyone is familiar with -- in this case telephone, TV
and what looked like the TV remote
2. Low cost capital outlay -- we had some modems/controls that were less
than $100.

So I do tend to agree that an approach based upon the cable settop box, the
TV and an enhanced remote device that includes alpha keyboard is likely to
be most succesful. The level of local intelligence available within the
settop box could, of course, be scaleable.

Chris Jacobs
JACOBS INTERNATIONAL
Marketing and Strategic Planning
616 West Upsal Street
Philadelphia PA 19119-3626
Tel: (215) 843-7494 Fax: (215) 843-7958
Email: c.jacobs@xopen.co.uk

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