Prashant Agarwal 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (33) comment rss

  • On the post: DoubleClick Buys NetGravity

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 13 Jul, 1999 @ 12:35pm

    Good fit

    This deal is a good fit for both companies. Their core businesses really compliment each other. Netgravity had tried to expand into the service model but didn't get very far. Now DoubleClick will have a stand alone product and more engineers.

  • On the post: Amazon expands again

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 13 Jul, 1999 @ 12:26pm

    Amazon Tech and Toys

    I don't think that Amazon needs to a price leader in every category. They can use books, music, and videos to cross sell people into other product categories. B&M business have done this for years. Best Buy has very aggressive prices on CD's just to get people in the doors.

  • On the post: Coupons Sent to Your Wireless Device

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 23 Jun, 1999 @ 02:34pm

    Wireless couponing?

    You want me to use my wireless service to receive junk mail? I don't see the benefit. Now if you give me a RIM Interactive Pager with Go.America service for a low ad-subsidized price, you could be onto something.

  • On the post: Techdirt for the Palm VII

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 24 May, 1999 @ 12:55pm

    No Subject Given

    Great,like I really needed another reason to buy a Palm VII. This is the Pilot I've been waiting for. Others have upgraded as new Pilots have come out. Not me. I still use my well worn Pilot 1000 (upgraded to Palm Professional via upgrade card). This is the first Pilot I think is worth upgrading too. Plus, I'm going blind since I don't have a backlight. Its probably worth waiting till the national roll out, because the price may be adjusted.

  • On the post: Yahoo Goes To Enterprise Portals

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 13 May, 1999 @ 05:54pm

    Yahoo Corporation

    This makes a lot of sense to me. If you look at My Yahoo and all the features they have been pushing lately (Pager, Mail and Calender), corporations are a great target for Yahoo. With some refinement, you could easily use Yahoo as a way to get all your news, mail, and do group scheduling and instant messaging. They have all the components. Watch out Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange.

  • On the post: Time Warner to Ditch Pathfinder

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 26 Apr, 1999 @ 07:57pm

    Duh!

    Quote from the news.com article:

    "The decision to take it down was 'based on the fact that 98 percent of the traffic doesn't go to Pathfinder's home page, but to the individual sites,' said a spokesman for Time Incorporated New Media."

    I think we all could have told them that before they launched.



  • On the post: Best Buy Stops Selling iMacs in Protest

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 19 Apr, 1999 @ 01:12pm

    Think different

    According to Apple, their customers "Think Different". But if you are an Apple reseller you are not allowed to "Think Different". In typical Apple style, its all or nothing. When they learn they are not in a position to be so inflexible? I applaud Best Buy for taking a stand against Apple.

  • On the post: Bills.com to Offer Free Online Bill Payment System

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 14 Apr, 1999 @ 12:28pm

    Bill paying heating up

    I'm huge fan of online bill payments. I've been banking online for over 2.5 years and it is a great time saver.

    This market is heating up. Bank of America is testing their own bill payment/presentation services right now. But the adoption will be slow. Only 1M of BofA's 30M customers use their online banking. That seems pretty small.

  • On the post: Real Networks Buys Xing

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 13 Apr, 1999 @ 11:39am

    Re: Step 1: Stomp out MP3

    Maybe Real wants to kill Xing , but instead I hope they use the Xing technology to make RealPlayer and Real server support streaming MP3. That would be cool.

  • On the post: CNET acquires Killer App..

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 23 Mar, 1999 @ 12:28pm

    49M?

    Not sure if they are worth 49M. They have a nice site with plenty of product detail info. But typically these deals are valued on traffic as well as content. I wonder how much traffic Killer App has compared to CNET's own Shopper.com.

  • On the post: Broadband Failure

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 16 Mar, 1999 @ 02:23pm

    Wire the home not the device

    I don't think the service itself is the problem. It is how the service is delivered. Not to mention roll out strategy mistakes.

    The HK and Singapore services both focused on delivering broadband to a particular device in the home, TV or PC. This is a doomed strategy. The PC isn't great for video and the TV isn't great for email/web.

    My suggestion is simple. The pipe comes to the house and is accessable by PCs and the TVs. PCs access the email/web and TVs access video. You can also have PCs access video and TVs with email/web, but only as supplementry services, not as their main function. Granted that this is hard because is requires that the house has multiple ports for coax/ethernet. But cable companies have to do this now anyways, right?

    Broadband services should focus on networking the house, not just individual devices in the home.

  • On the post: Gore Putting Pressure on MS Trial to Help His Own Candidacy?

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 15 Mar, 1999 @ 05:26pm

    Gore for president?

    I would expect no less from the author of Earth in the Balance and the guy who created the Internet.

    The interesting part is Silicon Valley getting this type of attention. TechNet must be working.

  • On the post: E*Trade Venture Fund

    Prashant Agarwal ( profile ), 12 Mar, 1999 @ 02:09pm

    No Subject Given

    I agree with Mike, that these venture funds will be ditched in the long term. I see this as part of the general business cycle of bringing in complimentory-but-not-core businesses, only to spin them off or eliminate them one cash gets tight.

    The entire VC model has come in favor due to its sucess in the technolgy sector. It has worked in a very connected, Silicon Valley-centric, environment. I wonder if the model can be replicated by the new corporate funds. Are there intangible elements that the new funds will not be able to replicate?