Internet trend watcher Zona Research, of Redwood City, California, disagrees with the generally held view and believes that if the Network Computer market really is set for lift-off, it will be in the consumer market, not at the corporate dumb terminal replacement level. The pollster forecasts consumer Network Consumer shipments of 2 million this year, rising to a somewhat credibility stretching 70.5 million by 2000, compared with only 1.7 million sales in the corporate market in 1997, up from 383,000 last year, a figure which must surely be mostly made up of rebadged X-terminals from companies like Network Computing Devices Inc, since no Oracle Corp Ellison spec-ed Network Computers have as yet hit the streets. That putative 1.7 million will only hit 6.7 million by the end of the century. This consumer Network Computer market will consist mainly of Internet telephones and other application-specific Internet devices, perhaps like Web-enabled game players, believes Zona. If Zona is being too bullish on the consumer Network Computer aspect, the unspectacular dumb terminal replacement figures feel more right – but they also beg the question of how many Global 2000 companies will hurl out their existing personal computer-based infrastructure in favor of Network Computers.
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