3/97
Mr. Snearing sounded off first. He said, "We have just returned
from a marvelous ski trip to that great American shrine to the
rich called Vail, Colorado. What we saw there was simply more
than good taste allows. What we saw was pampering to the Cyberset
the likes of which we've never seen before."
He looked around the group for approval and got it. All the tiny
little heads shaking up and down. I didn't have the slightest
idea what they were discussing. Mr. Snyde took over by saying,
"I thought the Microsoft Barney toy was at the limits of
blurring the line between computers and reality, but what we
saw in Colorado makes Barney-lovers look positively tame."
I knew about Microsoft's Barney. It is a computer that looks
like a cuddly Barney Bear for kids in the two to five-year-old
range. It has a 2,000-word vocabulary (English so far but German,
French and Spanish versions are in the making) and costs $99.
Microsoft will spend $14.5 million to market Barney to an enthralled
group of Yuppie parents.
Microsoft thinks of it as another "hardware" line like
their mice and keyboards. I wanted to talk about a potential
trend their new Barney toy points to, but my curiosity about what
turned the Leprechauns off in Colorado forced me to ask, "What
in blazes are you people talking about at your ski outing?"
Mr. Snyde gave me a withering look and said, "What we saw
at the Vail ski resort, O lover of Penuche Sugar Walnuts, was
this. Perched atop Vail Mountain, the sanctity of all ski resorts,
was this little room at the inn called the `Sprint Communications
Center.' It's a rather large room where there are six Compaq
computers, tons of Microsoft software, e-mail of all varieties,
a T-1 Internet access, videoconferencing and a terminal dedicated
to up-to-the-minute stock trading information and, of course,
several telephones and copy machines. All courtesy of Sprint.
Furthermore, they are planning similar centers at other ski resorts
including the sacred mountains of Austria and Switzerland. What
do you think of that?"
I told them I thought it was pretty sick. "Ahhh ha,"
Ms. Mocking said with a leering grin, "That's exactly what
skiers told Sprint. But the Sprint guy said it wasn't sick because,
`You can stay far away from the Communications Center if you
should want.' But putting those toys for Cyber-addicted people
up on a ski mountain is the same as a dope peddler selling cocaine
in a rehab center. It's ghastly is what it is."
I made the comment that no place on earth is safe anymore from
the beep of a cell phone or some other computer-driven electrical
signal. Ms. Mocking looked at me with genuine annoyance and said,
"Well, O lover of Praline Pumpkin-Custard Pie, that's been
true for a couple of years now, but when they invade our ski
slopes, I think that is just too, too much." I sympathized
with her then asked what kind of trend she and the wee ones could
see that would tip off our readers about the future.
Mr. Leicitis, whose claim to fame is telling things "like
it is" said, "That's an easy one to answer. The next
major trend we will see is the contrarian theme where businesses
will advertise that no communications gear is allowed. In other
words, in about a year there will be ski resorts promising skiers
that if they come to their resort there will be no telephones,
no computers, no cell phone nodes, no copy machines kind of
a `back to nature' setting."
He was on a roll and continued, "I foresee a lot of revolt
coming. People do want to get away from the normal electronic
noise in their lives. They are going to flock to places that promise
this. But for a year or so we will see more ski resorts, fishing
resorts, hotels, cruise ships and vacation sites offering things
like the Sprint package. Then the revolt will set in and I predict
that the contrarian trend will last a lot longer than the present
trend to put computers and communications everywhere."
Many of the other Leprechauns at our meeting grumbled something
to the effect of "I hope so, but I'll believe it when I
see it." As long as I had the Leprechauns headed in the direction
of predicting future trends which is what they are supposed
to do to begin with I wanted to get back to the Microsoft Barney
Bear. Everyone is calling it the Barney Bear but Barney is actually
a cross between a Teddy Bear and some television-generated dinosaur
of the past.
I asked them to tell me what they are seeing as a trend regarding
Barney. Mr. Leicitis jumped on this immediately. "Again,
O lover of Springerle, this is an easy one. There are actually
two trends. The first is one that is upsetting computer manufacturers
like Compaq and Microsoft's nemesis, IBM. What these guys are
talking about in closed meetings is the encroachment of Microsoft
into the manufacturing and selling of computers.
"Don't forget that Barney Bear is nothing but a small and
very cheap ($99) computer inside a hide of polyester and cotton.
Mr. Gates has been nudging the hardware industry to get the cost
of computers down. He fears the dumb terminal approach being
taken by Sun and many others and figures the best way to crush
the idea of a $500 NC-dumb computer is to build a $750 smart
computer. So the guys from Compaq, Dell, AST and others don't
see a cuddly little dinosaur in Barney they see another potential
computer manufacturer backed by Microsoft's billion-dollar bankroll.
They are worried.
"The second trend we see is almost comical. No matter what
Microsoft does, they find a way to make new markets and new money.
Microsoft is now in the toy business and will be for a long time.
This is a brand new market that is just as large, if not larger,
as their operating systems and applications software niche. Microsoft
comes out again smelling like a rose.
"You can look for a lot of toys from Microsoft to hit the
market this year and in years to come. They will be basically
educational, basically use a computer to generate interactivity
with kids, and will be popular beyond belief. We have it on good
authority that Microsoft is loading the wagon for next Christmas.
The toy manufacturers are running really scared. They see Barney
as just the opening blast of a toy war. And they are not used
to competing with billion-dollar entities."
The thoughts of the Leprechauns really stunned me. They claim
that in one fell swoop Microsoft declared war on both the toy
industry and the traditional computer hardware industry. And will
be making money hand over fist by doing it. As Mr. Leicitis says
it's another Microsoft Moment.
"After lengthy negotiations we took the steps we felt we had to take."
[Motorola's Bill Heimbach announcing Motorola Information Systems filed suit against U.S. Robotics Inc. for
patent infringement related to V.34 modem technology.]
"Today we have a new marketplace, the Internet, which is hot and high-tech. And here come the old pyramid scams again, disguised in electronic garb and New Age jargon and trying to make a comeback."
[Jodie Bernstein with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission identifying more than 500 Web sites that may be fronts for illegal pyramid schemes.]
Leprechauns are not the most easily understood people in the world.
They are generally nice but they have this cutting edge in their
speech and manner that indicates a high degree of skepticism
and even cynicism. As they gathered around the keyboard for our
monthly meeting, this edge was most apparent.
Pushing electronic toys too far
Contrarian theory will win
Barney Bear is a Trojan horse
Phrases that need translating
Translation: We sued them bigtime and expect to collect millions.
Translation: There's a sucker born every minute and two to take the money.
