Slide 19 Notes:
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A final comment. Recently, Andy Grove, Chair and CEO of Intel, was quoted in an interview with Business Week on April 13, 1998. He said that “Commerce, marketing, information, entertainment - all of these things are going to be impacted by the presence of a billion connected computers.” He questioned: “What needs to be done to reach that point sooner than later.”

It is our industry - the telecommunications industry - be it cable, broadcast, wireless, wireline - long distance and local - all of us represented in this room are going to be the catalyst. The catalyst for creating the environment to connect these computers - the way we have connected a billion telephone numbers.

What will the future look like? There will certainly be many more changes – some that we have not even begun to consider. My daughter was at a friend’s house and wanted to call home. My friend has rotary dial phones and my daughter had trouble figuring out how to use it! She was told to put her finger in the hole and turn it…

I’d like to leave you with this observation. The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1980.
They were prepubescent when the Persian Gulf War was waged.
Black Monday 1987 is as significant to them as the Great Depression.
Their lifetime has always included AIDS.
Atari predates them, as do vinyl albums.
The expression "you sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.
They may have heard of an 8 track, but chances are they probably have never actually seen or heard one.
They have always had an answering machine.
Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels.
They were born the year that Sony introduced the Walkman.
They don't know who Mork was or where he was from.
They never heard the term "Where's the beef?"
When I lived in Denver, US West used to have an ad series that said “Out here, you either make dust - or eat dust.” Our industry is leading a settlement of a new information frontier. Like the pioneers of a century ago, the trail to our industry’s future is uncertain - but the rewards at the end of the trail could be immense. We’ll gain more insights over the coming two days - or we can talk about developing strategies by calling my office and seeing how we can ensure your company is a leader - making dust - not just a follower.
I hope I have helped provoke some interesting questions today. And, over the next two days, I hope you are able to ask many interesting questions as this conference unfolds. Thank you.