Content becomes king in buying portal and telephone services. Fixed line carrier revenue losses partially offset by mobile traffic increases. Accounting rates fail to be replaced by cost based settlements until 2002. Internet revenue sharing becomes a probability as network cost sharing becomes a necessity. The PC still remains in business, as 3-D and animation increase demand for higher speed processors and servers become an integral part of home services.
Cheaper bandwidth influences the development and proliferation of PC systems.
Larger disk drives and re-writeable DVDs are even stronger growth markets. Outsourced messaging services take off as the overall IT outsourcing market expands rapidly. Voice recognition and language translation moves out of the laboratory into the marketplace as unified messaging and new applications emerge. Napster's reincarnation fails, for marketing reasons, to make the transition from free to fee, leaving free Internet providers to figure out their own transition formula or die. A decline in the market for ERP systems in favour of e-commerce solutions.