Computing and Internet trends, 1.0

Occasionally, when the columnist doesn`t have one wide-reaching and captivating idea for a particular week`s piece, he has to resort to commenting - in an opinionated and hopefully entertaining way - on all sorts of different developments. This is common practice, so please don`t blame me. I promise I`ll make it worth your while.

This week, then let`s take a look at some `smaller` topics. Now that my legs have recovered from the annual Computer Faire & Bexa (I haven`t measured myself, but I don`t think I actually became any shorter), it`s time to reflect on developments there and elsewhere.

Microsoft has launched its new Outlook 98 personal information organiser and mailbox program, and it warrants commentary. I picked up a copy from the kind folks at Microsoft SA, a CD in the back cover of one of those "Step by Step" books from Microsoft Press. I installed it last night and I must say that I battled. Installation was wonderfully easy and quickly accomplished, but then the trouble started. First, a message got stuck in my outbox. Why?

Nobody expects Microsoft to have `been there` when everything started - they weren`t - but surely doing a little homework and research isn`t too much to ask?

Who knows. Microsoft`s support site was helpful only inasmuch as it pointed out that it was time to create a new set of personal folders (Microsoft`s name for a mailbox with a scheduling and contacts database). It then suggested that I copy all items across from the old personal folders. This can take quite a while, especially since I have several thousand email messages and several hundred appointments and contacts. It`s done, though, and everything seems to be working fine now.

The one thing that really bugs me, however, is the way it formats email. Am I the only one who remembers that email formatting is an art form, and that there are certain guidelines that should be adhered to? Nobody expects Microsoft to have `been there` when everything started - they weren`t - but surely doing a little homework and research isn`t too much to ask? In Outlook 97, which I was using previously, messages were marked with "On [date], [person] wrote:" when I replied to them. This, it seems, was the last time Microsoft wrote a mailbox program that extends this common email courtesy. The new Outlook, otherwise quite similar to the old one, merely indents the message with a "greater than" sign and puts "----- Original message -----" at the top of the quoted text. Ugly, and there`s no way to change it. At least none that I could find.

Sadly, this might be an indication of things to come. Over time, we stand to loose accepted standards of mail formatting. Standards, it seems, can be changed at will by majority market-share vendors, and there`s precious little anybody can do about it. Over time, this will have an adverse effect on our communications. Before, I felt like I was extending a common courtesy to my correspondents; now, it seems like I`m barking orders or putting stamps of approval on existing, unchanged "----- Original messages -----".

Have you ever wondered about manuals included with cheap, Far Eastern appliances? They sort of seem to be in English, but it`s typically an endearing, incomprehensible version. While continental European manuals seem to transliterate from their original languages (Dutch manuals are my favourite), Far Eastern manuals always sound like someone took random words and chained them together in a type of industrial poetry.

Now I know why. One of the things to hit big at this year`s Faire was voice recognition software. Of course, I couldn`t resist. I spend a lot of my day writing, and the idea of dictating to my computer in a leisurely way, reclined in my office chair with my feet on the desk appealed to me a great deal. So I bought a copy of "Solo NaturallySpeaking", Dragon Systems` continuous speech recognition software. (This was after I purchased a laser pointer and a completely pointless but cool Rolling Stones mousepad which I`m never going to use because I have a notebook computer with an in-built track pad.)

At home that fateful Saturday night, I trained my dictation program. I spent what seemed like several hours reading excerpts from Arthur C. Clarke`s "3001: The Final Odyssey" to it, making sure I enunciated the words properly. Since it`s the British English edition, I put on my best pompous Queen`s accent and read myself into a sci-fi stupor. Then, I trained it to understand the way I say some typical words pertaining to the things I write about, like "UUNET", "Internet", "Datatec", "networking", "email", "Telkom", "SAIX", etc. You know, just your average run-of-the-mill words.

Then came the test. Granted, I wasn`t expecting it to be blazingly fast, as the computer that I use barely meets the minimum specifications: a Pentium 133MHz with 32MB of RAM. So I started dictating a simple trial letter. "Dear Peter," I said. "Thank you for your fax dated 1 January 1998."

"Thank you formal facts dated 1 January 1998," my program typed out. I tried again. "Thank you for you`ll facts dated one January 1998," it spewed out, laboriously. I said: "To talk into a computer is not an easy thing." NaturallySpeaking recognised: "The take into a computer is not uneasy thing." Not uneasy, indeed.

And I`d thought it such an appealing idea to talk to my PC. Having read the manual, what really appealed to me was the idea of pasting my perfectly recognised text into an email message, easily and painlessly. "Switch to previous Window" worked as a command, "Paste that" also worked well. Then, Windows 95 experienced a kernel panic and hung. Well, I guess I`ll keep training my little computer to recognise my speech better, and maybe I`ll "speak" a column to you soon. In the meantime, I`ll try using NetMeeting to talk to some overseas relatives. The microphone works very well.

Which brings me to another significant development at this year`s Computer Faire - free modems with Internet access. How did I make that transition, you may ask, from microphones to free modems? Well, it all lies in an anecdote. One evening, it was Friday I think, there was a customer at the UUNET Internet Africa stand, deliberating with himself and a beleaguered staffer of mine whether he should or shouldn`t buy a "Free Modem" from us - a combined 1 year`s Internet access with a modem thrown in for good measure.

Since it was getting late and we had beers in the stand fridge, I said, "Tonight, there`s a free beer with every modem sold." He replied: "I`ll take it." I thought to myself that this must have been the most expensive beer the guy ever bought. This relates to the microphone story inasmuch as I feel that I`ve just bought the most expensive microphone anyone`s ever bought - for R699.

I can`t claim to have been wholly uninvolved in introducing free modems with Internet access to the SA market, as the company I work for were the first to launch such a product a few weeks ago. At the show, a whole range of seemingly beleaguered-feeling ISPs came to the table with their own similar offering. In most cases, it was a little strange: one company offered a "free modem" but only if you sign a two-year contract, another came through with what can only be described as a sub-standard Far East 33.6 Kbps modem, and several others went out on a severe financial limb to offer a show-only special.

If I`ve learned anything about marketing in the past few weeks then it is the simple fact that better products make marketing as easy as pie. Previously, everyone was offering the exact same thing: starter kits and modem bundles. Starter kits contained a "free trial month" and retailed for around R100. Modem bundles contained a starter kit with a free month and retailed for around R1000. There was product equity and despite some large advertising budgets being thrown around, take-ons didn`t move much beyond previous growth rates. Now that we have free modems, there is suddenly a differentiation in the marketplace.

Over all, the consumer will benefit from this. Internet access providers are buying market share, and this typically bodes well for users, unless their service levels start lagging. Since some suspicious journalists asked: UIA has planned ample bandwidth upgrades into the free modem equation.

What was interesting to observe was how different companies spend marketing budgets on different things, with vastly different results. Another thing that was neat to observe - at least for me - was that it appears that consumers prefer solid products, and that they have become discerning enough to play the technology market to their advantage. It`s nice to see South African technology consumers grow up to spot a true bargain when one is placed in front of them.

But enough of what could be interpreted as `gloating`. I need to go and read some more Arthur C. Clarke to my computer.