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SAN FRANCISCO -- A compendium of notes, observations, and pearls overheard at the BancBoston Robertson Stephens Tech 99 conference Wednesday.
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The head of Microsoft's OEM business was scheduled to give a talk at Tech 99 on Wednesday. But Joachim Kempin didn't show up.
"His testimony ran long," explained Marshall Senk, senior analyst and managing director with conference-host BancBoston Robertson Stephens. "He is stuck" at the Department of Justice trial.
Senk was impressed that, while Microsoft's public image has had a rough ride in recent months, the company's stock has performed extremely well. He attributed that, at least in part, to the company's commitment to pure research, or, as they call it on the courthouse steps, innovation.
"They invest a ton of money in a ton of things. Microsoft has a real willingness not to rest on its laurels" and to use cash to develop new products, Senk said. The company has on staff, "200 engineers paid to think shit up."
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Meanwhile, BancBoston's Lauren Cooks Levitan is bullish on Amazon.com -- but not all online retailers.
Levitan, a principal at the firm, said, "Amazon hit a US$1 billion dollar run rate in the fourth quarter, [which is] nothing short of amazing. Wal-Mart had been incorporated for 10 years before it hit a $1 billion run rate."
Amazon knows how to use tech to retain customer information and email for targeted-sales information, she said. But now that they have entered the music business, how will they compete with CDNow and N2K?
"Even combined, I don't see them to be much of a threat," Levitan said. Those companies are "using price as a weapon. That's not a viable long-term strategy."
Levitan believes PlanetRX and Drugstore.com has a "huge opportunity." The bucks won't be found in the toothpaste, she said, but she figures consumers would love to sign up for a yearlong, automatic renewal of standing prescriptions, such as contact lenses.
People will think it's worth the five extra bucks, she said. "And if you think you're getting the best price at Walgreens, you're wrong."
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Brian Halla, CEO of National Semiconductor, wrapped up his spiel with a meditation on rival Intel's latest privacy snafu.
"Intel's gotta do what they've gotta do," Halla said, referring to the Pentium III chip's serial number controversy. "We personally think security belongs in your wallet. It's personal, not a CPU-centric thing. It doesn't make any sense to have an ID in information appliances."
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Excite's George Bell modestly insisted his site was better than Yahoo. Apparently, users spend more time per page on Excite because they have to click fewer times than on Yahoo to get more content. It's a personalized experience, he said.
Bell said Excite's MatchLogic relationship will help the company offer more targeted audiences to advertisers, "if we can throw darts better than the next guy."
Bell described a MatchLogic technology called "speed select" that detects the speed at which a user comes into a Web site, and serves an ad accordingly. So users can get the most complex graphics possible in an ad without crashing their browsers.
Bell said consumers will also come in droves following more Excite marketing campaigns.
"We will ride on the back of a $300 million marketing campaign from Intel as their portal partner," he said.
