From: Peter Rothman <prothman@metatools.com>
Subject: Re: ONLINE: Virtual Reality Investor
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 09:57:55 -0700
Message-ID: <32611F93.7756@metatools.com>
Organization: MetaTools, inc.


Bob Jacobson wrote:
> 
> An absolutely invaluable resource not just for investors but for VR
> companies trying to understand better the financial and competitive
> environments and the companies' place in them.  Look here for valuable
> constructive criticism.  Thank you, Andrew!

I concur.  Andrew, your report on the acquisition of my company
contains information that we certainly didn't release (I'd love to
know where it came from), and is a complete, mostly accurate, and
thorough report.

To clarify my position regarding the VR industry, it is not entirely
true that I am "not overly optimistic about the immediate future of
VR", but rather that I think both industry and academia need a reality
check on how far we've come and how we might go about progressing
further.

More correctly, I think that "virtual reality applications have failed
to deliver the benefits predicted by VR evangelists" as you report,
but additionally I believe that this is primarily a
social/human/business issue and not a technological one.  The
technology is here (or nearly so), but we've still failed to produce
anything of great lasting value.  Why?


Peter Rothman
prothman@metatools.com