I pulled this from a private board. It claims to be a letter from TJ & Bell to @home employees. It was supposedly taken from Bloomberg. I make no claim to its validity, but I added a few bolds for emphasis.
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To all employees,
We are writing to you about the article today in the New York Times. It isn?t worth dignifying, except that we don?t want employees worrying about these things based on speculation and rumor in the press. I have been in direct contact with AT&T this morning. I can report, and they will confirm in a press release today, that there are no discussions going on with AOL by either Excite@Home or AT&T regarding current access or access in three years post our contract.
The board has been explicit that any discussions taking place with AOL, or Yahoo or others, be led by the management team of Excite@Home. To reiterate, any deals to be done that affect E@H, will be done with E@H and the Company?s partners. As we have said before in our Q2 Results call to Wall Street, we have discussions with almost every major technology and Internet company. You have heard us say that we are open to discussions with AOL or Yahoo, and have had such discussions in the past. But let me reiterate that there are no current discussions, or proposals, from either side. In this respect the NY Times article is simply wrong.
Let me summarize where we are on this important topic. AT&T has publicly stated that they respect and will honor the current contract. They will be open to discussions with multiple players post the 2002 contract period, but in Mike Armstrongs words ?We will have a long term, special relationship, with Excite@Home?. That means it is our opportunity to do a great job over the next three years, build our brand and subscriber base, and make ourselves a great and invaluable partner of Cable long term.
We are sorry this kind of biased, unsubstantiated reporting affects the lives of such a hard working group of employees. You all are doing a world class job at executing the company strategy. It is a shame the press is trying to turn the Internet story into a Peyton Place soap opera, instead of reporting on the news.
TJ & GB |
