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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL)
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To: J Krnjeu who wrote (28893)8/8/1999 2:29:00 PM
From: Jack T. Pearson  Read Replies (1) of 41369
 
I haven't seen any analysis of the impact of a cut-rate price for MSN on the smaller ISPs from local ISPs to Mindspring and EarthLink. Most of these ISPs barely survive at $19.95 per month and derive little significant revenue from sources beyond the subscriber fees. I would think they would be most vulnerable to Microsoft cut-rate fees. In fact, I would bet that is where most of MSN's growth will come from.

I have heard rumors of a MSN price of $11.95/mo. It is interesting that when you add $11.95 to the price of AOL's "bring-your-own-access" service ($9.95), you are within 5 cents of AOL's full unlimited service. Also, the MSN site does not yet offer the $11.95 price. They offer $19.95/mo after a one month free trial. AOL offers $21.95/mo after 120 free hours.

Microsoft appears to be worried about AOL's potential to offer services that compete with Microsoft's core businesses of operating system and basic applications such as MS Word and Excel. Most of these are sold to businesses. Businesses are greatly concerned about applications compatibility with their suppliers and customers. Businesses will be the last to switch from Microsoft. But AOL could offer simple word processor, spreadsheet, and database applications to home users. I suspect there are also some new capabilities that AOL could offer that more conveniently link excerpts from the internet into user databases or documents--maybe something based on HTML, SGML, or XGML.

Never forget, in chaos there is opportunity.
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