Leprechaun Talk

It was no surprise then when Mr. Contrarian presented a glowing report about a new web browser called Opera during our monthly "trends" meeting with all the Leprechauns. This web browser goes against the trend as set by a couple of major players. While Microsoft and Netscape are giving their browsers away, Opera is selling its product for $35. Latest reports out of Oslo, Norway say "several hundred thousand people have signed up to evaluate the web browser."

Mr. Contrarian says, "I believe about 80 percent of those who evaluate it will buy it. In this day and age $35 is nothing. The reason they will buy it is that Opera is so bloat-free." Pointing his finger directly at my nose he said, "Your IE 4.0 browser added about 47 MB to your system. Opera operates on only 1.115,966 bytes, you could put it all on one floppy disc. Opera is faster than your IE 4.0 or your new 30 Megs of Netscape. Much, much faster O lover of Chocolate-covered Almonds."

One of my favorite Leprechauns, the gracious and genuinely sweet Ms. Amiable joined in. She said, "The background of the Opera development is like a Grimm's Fairy Tale. Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner and Geir Ivarsoy, both from Norway, had a vision to create an Internet browser that could be used by all computer users - including those with older machines. Opera can be used equally well with a 386SX with 8 MB of memory or the latest muscle-bound Pentium MMX with 64 MB of RAM. They succeeded beyond their original goal - and did it all from scratch. But in order to live and eat they need to sell their system. Now I ask you, what's $35 for a browser that is at least as good as those from Microsoft and Netscape and, according to Mr. Contrarian, probably better?"

I thought Mr. Contrarian's 80 percent projected ratio of trials to purchases might be a little high but generally agreed that they would sell quite a few units, I wanted his opinion on why people were flocking to the Opera site (www.operasoftware.com) to begin with. Mr. Contrarian gave me his you-are-so-dumb look and explained, "O lover of Caramel Apple Pudding, even if Opera were a dog of a program, people would flock to it.

"You see, we have achieved such a large base of computer users worldwide that a small but meaningful percentage, amounting to maybe two or three million users, will do nearly anything to avoid using Microsoft software - and Netscape for that matter. I know these people. These people are my cousins. They are contrarians to the core, people who love to buck the tide."

Shareware Sales Will Rise Again

I asked if I were correct in deducting that a trend is setting in which will see small developers making decent profits from their independent software applications even though they will be going head to head with Microsoft and other big corporate software developers?

"Oh indeed," he said, sarcastically adding, "And congratulations on your masterful deduction. At this moment there are about 107 million people who access the Internet. That means there are an additional 200 or 300 million people who have computers but don't have Internet access. These are people with older units operating on DOS or Windows 3.0 and 3.1. You need not be a rocket scientist to figure out that they can't run things like Office 97 or the other obeseware on the market. obese

"So you see, 0 lover of Creamy Rhubarb Pie, they are perfect candidates for small, simple, easy-to-use applications. For instance, a company called World Place, Inc. is quietly making big bucks from a word processor called Yeah Write (www. yeahwrite.com). Just like Opera, Yeah Write is sleek, small, easy and powerful. The entire program is about 1 MB, which includes a dictionary. In fact, they have several dictionaries for different languages like Dutch, Danish, French, Finnish, German, Italian, Spanish and several others. And their little word processor sells for $19. Compare that to the cost of Microsoft Word or even Corel's Word Perfect."

But it was Mr- Leicitis with his ability to quickly digest information and put into perspective who came to my rescue regarding trends. "The trend your are looking for," he said, "is a general rebirth of really good shareware. All these bright, independent developers understand that computer users are tired of mega-byte programs - even if they have plenty of storage space. You see, it is the general idea of bloatware that bothers people. They like to think lean and mean and Microsoft is not delivering lean and mean. So these bright young men and women see a vacuum forming in the market.

"The trend will be for these young programmers to bring really good, simple, effective software to the market at low, low prices. They will get a share - albeit a small share - of sales. But as Mr. Contrarian points out, a small share in 1998 is counted in millions."

Jobs That Have Not Been Invented

As I was shaking my head up and down that I finally understood, Ms. Bubbly caught my attention by waving her arms like she was in a full-blown hurricane with nothing to hang on to. I asked her what was up and she said, "Jobs that haven't been invented."

My puzzled look prompted her to continue. "It's just an interesting trend your readers might enjoy watching," she said. "It will be fun to look at the new positions being created because of the Internet and the computer jobs that were nonexistent a year or two ago." I asked if she could give me an example.

"Oh certainly. In newspapers around the world there is a new job called CARR Librarian. Nearly every newspaper with a circulation of 200,000 or more has created this position in the last 18 months. It is a cross between good computer skills, excellent Internet skills and complete librarian skills. CARR stands for computer-assisted research and reporting. And the new jobs pay really well. Much better, in fact, than straight reporting jobs".

I told her I didn't understand her point. Or what kind of trend this CARR thing pointed to. And darned if it wasn't the sharp-minded Mr. Leicitis who rescued me for the second time.

"The trend is that there is no time for a trend," Mr. Leicitis explained. "Things are happening so quickly in the workplace regarding use of the computer and the Internet that jobs that will become commonplace in the year 2000 are totally unheard of as of today. The use of people-power aided by computer-power (or vice versa) is actually building new jobs, you might say even creating new jobs - at an alarmingly fast rate. Things are happening so quickly that no trend develops. One minute a job doesn't exist and the next minute it not only exists but also multiplies thousands of times. The new CARR position is just an example."

"And it will be fun to track it," the beaming Ms. Bubbly added - bringing our monthly Leprechaun session to a close.