Dumb even for a car dealer!
Ever since the demise of OS/2 and the resurgence at Apple Computer, I've been hard put finding a target inviting total public humiliation. Not to fear: The head of the National Automobile Dealers Association just came to the rescue, supplying one of the dopier statements in recent memory: Buying a car is "a lot different than buying a book or a VCR over the Internet," he told his constituency over the weekend. "We are talking about a titled piece of property and an average sales transaction cost of $25,000." First of all, it's not really a stretch. Books and VCRs don't cost much, but millions of people buy multi-thousand dollar computers over the Net. The fact of the matter is that car dealers are doomed dinosaurs and they have nobody to blame but themselves. People hate them almost as much as journalists and for good reason ("Trust me, this is our best price … blah, blah, blah.) Now that Autobytel announced plans to sell cars directly over the Internet, rest assured that the rest of the players in that market will get religion before the spring thaw. (BTW, the Monday traffic on Autobytel's site was so heavy that the servers failed to meet the pent-up demand.)
I can imagine that Chuck D might like to stomp Steve Case's face at this hour. The Chuckster has been perhaps the most vocal music artist to jump onto the Internet bandwagon, viewing the new technology as the doomsday weapon to blast the big studios upside their collective heads. Despite all their palaver, the major music houses have been fairly feckless about the Internet. But in one fell swoop, the EMI-Time Warner hookup turns America Online into a colossus of the music world (assuming the Time Warner merger goes through without trouble.)
So Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has launched an online ad campaign targeting Internet taxes. The banner ads will run on Slate.com. Big deal. This one falls under the category of mom and apple pie. Folks might get really excited if he used the Net to take aim at certain flag-waving nitwits in South Carolina.
When it comes to shoving grand visions of the future down our throats, few companies have the Barnum & Bailey routine down so completely as Microsoft. Take BizTalk (please!), which the Redmondians hailed as the ingredient that would do for e-commerce what HTML did for the World Wide Web. That was ten months ago. The BizTalk server is now said to be on target for a mid-year release. Considering Microsoft's track record hitting product release dates, this has to rate as yet another in a long line of vaporware announcements.
Ed Zander and the Zanderians over at Sun swear the company will never adopt Linux. He says every ounce of R&D will go into Solaris. And now the company is about to sweeten the pot by eliminating license fees on Solaris 8. Seeing how the official announcement, expected Wednesday, comes only three weeks before Microsoft's debut -- finally! -- of Windows 2000, we have the makings of a really fun donnybrook in the server operating system market.
Is the product shortage at Intel worse than expected? Yours truly hears rumblings that the big chip maker finds itself in the middle of a big pickle, hush-hush and strictly off the record.
Beats me but some people are again buying the BS. How else to explain the big run-up in shares of Amazon.com after the profitless, protean entity announced it inked a deal with Drugstore.com. If Jeff Bezos can't give the Street any guidance when the company expects to turn a profit, the Street should hammer Amazon with the biggest bludgeon it can find.
I recently had a chat with Michael Dertouzous, one of the sharper observers of the computer scene. The MIT professor is quite enthusiastic about imminent tech breakthroughs that remove the sting from computing. But he warns that a global digital divide is likely to worsen before it improves. He's probably right.
Quote of the day goes to Lehman Brothers analyst Brian Oakes, who provided major market insight by declaring he is bullish on business-to-business Internet stocks. "We like the 'B-to-B' sector. It seems to be one of the hottest sectors," he said this morning on CNBC. No kidding!
In the news
Time, EMI, rock the Web
Why is BizTalk so muted?
Sun offers "free" Solaris
Bell not excited about AOL
PC sales growth slows
Regis 1, Ask Jeeves 0
Schmidt: Have I got a deal for you
Techs turn south