Tech: Weak PC manufacturers expected to fall
updated 11:35 am EST, Mon March 26, 2001
Morning tech news: After Micron Electronics' exit from the PC business last week, more PC manufacturers are expected to either consolidate or shut down completely in lieu of the industry's continuing sales slump; Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers warns that the economic downturn in the U.S. will last at least three quarters and is spreading around the globe; Compaq has announced that it will use Microsoft's Windows XP to develop a new tablet-sized PC, which allows a user to write notes directly onto a screen that is about the size of a sheet of paper; and the latest report from research firm Webnoize suggests that Napster users who are sharing the least files are leaving the peer-to-peer networking system while those sharing the most music are renaming their files to work around Napster's court-ordered filtering of copyrighted music.
Joined:
renaming files?
Whatever, the majority of Napster users who use the service a lot will likely switch to programs like WinMX (yes, a PC program...I'm a Mac lover at heart though) which let you easily connect to OpenNap servers (not only that but you can be connected to Napsters server plus two or three OpenNap servers simultaneously and benefit from ALL of them (unlike Napster which only lets you download from the ONE server you are connected to). Programs like WinMX will skyrocket in popularity as word of their existence spreads. Napster the company may be dying/changing, but the Napster style for sharing music will live on (of course, this assumes there are enough people willing to maintain OpenNap servers and not get sued. The story a few weeks ago about the man setting up an OpenNap server off the coast of England gives us hope that OpenNap will live on for the foreseeable future.