DATA POINTS: E-COMMERCE MARKET ESTIMATES.

No Internet business plan is complete without numbers that show the awesome size of the new company's business opportunity. But how trustworthy are these numbers? Not very, judging from the lack of consensus among the researchers who claim to track e-commerce statistics. A publication called The eRetail Report recently compared 15 surveys of "consumer online shopping revenues for 1999," and found that the numbers sprawled all the way from $36 billion (Boston Consulting Group) to $3.9 billion (Direct Marketing Association). In fairness, research firms often segment the marketplace in unique ways, so some of these differences simply reflect variations in methodology. But if market researchers can't agree about how to measure e-commerce sales that have already taken place, it's hard to feel confident about their projections for future sales.

eRetail Report Vol. II, published by eMarketer, 821 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10003; 212/677-6300; price, $795. Web: www.emarketer.com.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY professor of Communications Cliff Nash on the excessive use of slide shows: "Try to imagine the "I have a dream' speech in PowerPoint." (Quoted in Fortune, 12/20/99)

MICROSOFT founder Bill Gates on his decision to give up his CEO title and focus on product development: "I might be threatening to write code. I haven't been able to threaten that for a number of years." (Quoted in The Wall Street Journal, 1/14/00)

LOTUS chief executive Jeff Papows on his plan to join a startup: "The village idiots are getting rich, so given the experience that I've had, I do think I'll be able to add value." (Quoted in The Boston Globe, 1/18/00)

APPLE COMPUTER chief executive Steve Jobs on being a company founder: "It's hard to tell with these Internet startups if they're really interested in building companies or if they're just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don't really want to build a company, they won't luck into it. That's because it's so hard that if you don't have a passion, you'll give up." (Quoted in Fortune, 1/24/00)

MICRON ELECTRONICS general manager Michael Gale on why he believes the demand for market research is drying up: "Research is really born out of ignorance. As people in this industry become more knowledgeable, they need it less. There are enough smart people in this industry that they don't have to spend an enormous amount of money on research." (Quoted in Marketing Computers, 7/99)

ATNEWYORK editor Tom Watson on market research projections: "I have not seen a business plan, and I see hundreds every year, without a Jupiter or Forrester factlet in it. Nobody knows what their business is going to look like in five years, and everyone who writes one knows that. But you gotta have numbers in the business plan, you just gotta have them, and Forrester and Jupiter provide them, so you put them in." (Quoted in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, 12/19/99)

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO economist Austan Goolsbee on Internet taxation: "What we're really talking about is an attempt to raise the sales tax on every consumer in America. Not just in one state or one district or on one type of good. They want to raise taxes for everybody." (Quoted in The Wall Street Journal, 6/29/99)

SOUTH DAKOTA governor William Janklow on his belief that Web customers are cheating his state out of sales taxes: "We're going to start stopping little brown trucks and looking at packages." (Quoted in Inter@ctive Week, 12/20/99)

AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM director Ron Nehring on public comments received by the Federal Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, which show 93% opposition to Web taxes: "As Americans get to understand the Frankenstein tax monster the politicians are building for the Internet, they're deciding they don't like it." (Quoted in DM News, 1/17/00)