Business technology warfare at it’s best! One of the lessons I have learned over time through experiences and watching others is simply this: life is too hard to experience alone. The more people and expertise brought together the better things will turn out under smart strong leadership. Competing with Microsoft is no easy thing, so the experts must be brought in. Perhaps the Be group will make a difference for Palm.

I wonder if there is any money to be made in the battle between Microsoft and Palm?

Dell said it actually expects revenue to stay flat or decline slightly this quarter, which would buck the usual autumn trend.

And Hewlett-Packard Chairman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorina described back-to-school sales as subdued this year.

"We are -- as we've said a couple of times -- expecting a seasonal up-tick, but I would think of this school season as more subdued than others in the past," she said.

Baker said sales are likely to be closer to the levels of 1998, the year before generous rebates drove big gains in back-to-school sales. Although it is still early in the season, he expects sales to be down 15 to 20 percent from last year and 25 to 30 percent from 1999.

As we quoted in our December 2000 issue of the Ripple Effect Newsletter, we have enter the Post-PC era (Digital Ripple always tries to stay ahead of the trends for you). In my personal house-hold we have more computers then family members. To be exact we have 5 members that have access to, 4 desktop PC’s, 2 Laptops, and 5 palm sized mobile PC’s. I understand our family may be an exeption, but the point is everyone has access to a computer, so why do we need to buy more. The market has moved on and consumers are looking to be more nomadic.

Is there money to be made in developing new technology or implementing new ideas?

Convergence, broadly speaking, includes not only the blending of hardware devices like the PC, television, telephone, and stereo, but also the melding of media enterprises into powerful, synergistic combinations. And we will soon see the convergence of broadband with CPU power.

Richard Baskin, co-founder and chairman of Intertainer -- which provides interactive-television services such as video on demand for the entertainment industry -- says, "We are now in this adolescent phase of broadband and interactivity. But make no mistake about it: The child will grow up. Imagine having a video store in your home with all the TV, movies, and music videos you could possibly want. You get to choose what you see and play it instantly. That's what we're trying to do."

Of all the arguments given for the AOL Time Warner merger, it is this belief in convergence and the inherent potential for targeting consumers and cross-selling packaged advertising deals across brands that has investors salivating.

Is AOL Time Warner, with Warner Brothers Pictures, HBO, Time and cable properties, an Internet service provider, a content provider, or a content distributor? Is Microsoft (MSFT), which has moved aggressively into the portal business with MSN and into game consoles with the Xbox, a software company, a media company or a hardware company?