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Readers react to articles in Inc. Technology, 1999, #4, including "Cell Wall," by Jeffrey L. Seglin; "Make Way for Duck Links," by Leigh Buchanan; "Creative Juices," by David H. Freedman; and the cover story, "Best of the Small Business Web."

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Net Gain

I was really impressed by your roundup of 20 "non-dot-com" dot-com companies [" Best of the Small-Business Web," by Leigh Buchanan, Inc. Technology, 1999, No. 4]. Though the article was long, I was hoping it would never end. It must have taken a herculean effort to pull it all together.

Walid Mougayar
President
Cybermanagement
Toronto

Thank you for the article "Best of the Small-Business Web." I am an E-commerce consultant with a marketing group in Atlanta. I recently transitioned to E-commerce from medical-device marketing. Your article is an excellent primer on creating effective small-business Web sites. I have used segments of it in my presentations, and it helped me close my first sale of a very content-rich and highly functional site for a construction-products manufacturer.

During a recent search at Barnes & Noble for a book on selling Web sites to business owners, I found only one book listed -- and its retail price was $995! I believe this is a greatly undeveloped area of publishing in an exploding market niche.

Scott E. Hoffman
Account Executive
Target Public Relations and Marketing
Norcross, Ga.

"The Best of the Small-Business Web" was a very well-done article. With more and more businesses relying on Web communication, the article's topic is extremely relevant. Personally, I like to check out other companies' sites so that I can scavenge ideas and recommendations from them and also to know what's current and available when interviewing Web designers. Of course, the designers win out too, by having their portfolios posted for millions of readers to view.

Mark Foulkrod
Cofounder
Silvermark
Raleigh, N.C.

In your November issue you offer a promising series of case studies of successful Web sites, complete with start-up costs. But let's face it: a large percentage of those companies hired Web-site designers to make compelling, intelligent use of the medium. Nowhere in the magazine do you direct your readers to do the same; instead, in " Windows of Opportunity," in that same issue, you push software designed "to spice up the visuals on your site."

As a former graphic designer and now a marketing consultant and journalist in the field, I find your lack of savvy naïve. Not only do you miss the point, but you also turn off a lot of creative professional graphic designers who could benefit from your business advice. As a group they are hungry for the kind of entrepreneurial good news you've always provided.

Linda Cooper Bowen
Assistant Professor
Pratt Institute
New York City

The editors reply: Because of space considerations, we were not able to list all the services -- design, technical consultants, hardware and software products, to name a few -- that our winners used in launching their sites. Many of the winners did indeed employ the services of outside Web designers, and the fees paid to those and other service firms were included in the figures we provided for site-launch costs.

Fit to Be Tied?

Although I did learn a few things (such as the function of SIM cards) in the article " Cell Wall," by Jeffrey L. Seglin [ Inc. Technology, 1999, No. 4], I found it difficult to believe that anyone who could state that "there is nothing yet to replace the laptop as a workhorse for transmitting data back and forth while we're on the road" would not know what "RS-232" refers to. If one needs a workhorse, surely he or she has been at the game long enough to have used an RS-232 serial port for some purpose, such as an external modem or even to make a direct connection to another laptop or a PC for a file transfer.

Moreover, once Seglin realized what an RS-232 cable was, surely he could have found a computer store in the Boston area where he could have purchased one for $5 to $10. Barring that, there must be a mass-market discounter -- a Bradlees or a Circuit City -- that sells one; even campus bookstores have a decent selection of cables these days. But to have waited two weeks for one? How efficient is that? Does such behavior befit a true power user with demanding needs and high expectations?

Dave Martin
Senior Engineer
Advanced Manufacturing Engineering
Sony Trans Com
Irvine, Calif.

Seglin responds: Mr. Martin is exactly right: the RS-232 is a commonly available cable. And he's correct in saying that I could have secured it far more quickly (and perhaps more cheaply) if I'd gone to any of the stores that might carry commonly used cables. However, the issue I was trying to raise was that since the cell phone needed the cable to transmit data, the cable should have been included in the kit. When we lay out good money for products, the basic paraphernalia we need to operate them should be part of the deal.

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