Closing Bell Internet Daily for Friday, Mar 14, 1997
by Frank Barnako
Pointcast a takeover?
Here's a hot one, passed along by the senior investment analyst at Mecklermedia. In his Friday Net stock report, Steve Harmon says push-pioneer Pointcast is "rumored to be acquired by News Corp. any day now for a value we estimate at more than $300 million." Putting on his analyst hat, Harmon says the real problem for push companies, including Marimba and BackWeb, is "that push is a commodity and soon will be an assumed part of the Web experience." In fact, Harmon believes a Pointcast deal is the kind of thing he's been predicting for six months: users want simplicity, and that means individual, stand-alone Web features and utilities need to be incorporated into a suite of Internet applications. The analyst predicts "With the public window shut for many stand alone, one! -product, companies look for private deals to flourish." News Corp. has already shown an appetite for Net technology. Earlier this week the company debuted an online subscription service in the United Kingdom, featuring a sophisticated "intelligent" search agent from Autonomy, Inc.
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