IS INSP A PARTNER IN DIGEO? (Part Two)
HISTORY OF "DIGEO BROADBAND, INC."
(formerly named "Broadband Partners, Inc.")
What follows is a very brief <VBG> synopsis (in chronological order, I hope) of just a few of the numerous past articles and press releases that my crack research team has collected and filed over the past seventeen months, regarding the published "history" of the "Broadband Partners" (now named DIGEO Broadband, Inc.). Website "links" (when still available) are provided, as well as a few selected excerpts (bold added):
10/4/1999 - Seattle Times article
Allen Puts $1.65 Billion Into RCN
by Patrick Harrington
archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com
...Also today, RCN announced it would be in a joint venture called Broadband Partners with three companies controlled by Allen: Charter; the Go2Net network of Web sites; and High Speed Access, a provider of high-speed Internet access over cable TV lines.
Under the venture, Go2Net will distribute customized versions of its content, technologies and services to subscribers of Charter and RCN and other companies in Vulcan's portfolio.
"This is a great opportunity to immediately demonstrate synergy between RCN, Charter and Go2Net," said William Savoy, president of Vulcan Ventures. "As the wired world continues to unfold, we look forward to finding opportunities between these companies and our other new-media investments."...
10/4/1999 - Vulcan Ventures press release
Vulcan Ventures Announces Joint Venture
to Create Definitive Broadband Portal
Vulcan Ventures Inc., the investment organization of Paul G. Allen, today announced the formation of a joint venture with four of its affiliated Wired World companies - Charter Communications, RCN Corporation (RCNC), Go2Net (GNET), and High Speed Access (HSAC). The new company, Broadband Partners, was formed to provide broadband portal services initially to customers of Charter Communications, RCN and potentially other MSO's. Vulcan is the majority owner of the joint venture. Broadband Partners will establish headquarters on the West Coast later this year.
"This venture marks another step forward in our execution of Paul Allen's Wired World strategy," said William Savoy, president of Vulcan Ventures.
"The alliance will allow us to provide the ultimate Internet experience to our customers over a digital set-top box," said Jerry L. Kent, president and CEO of Charter Communications. It will facilitate the offering of broadband content to every consumer and will not be limited to PC users. We expect to achieve synergies with other Paul Allen investments in making Internet to the masses a reality.
"This is a significant extension and formalization of our March 16, 1999 agreement to provide Paul Allen's affiliated cable companies and their subscribers with access to Go2Net's portal services," said Russell C. Horowitz, Go2Net Chief Executive Officer..."This will add meaningful distribution opportunities and reach for Go2Net's offerings and also is an opportunity to extend Go2Net's e-commerce infrastructure to broadband environments."
10/5/2000 - Seattle P-I article
Allen Links Companies In Internet Venture
by Dan Richman
seattlep-i.nwsource.com
A new venture formed by Paul Allen yesterday takes another step toward the Mercer Island multibillionaire's vision of "wired world," promising to deliver high-speed data, voice and video through TV set-top boxes by late 2000.
"Four companies, all at least partly owned by Allen, are to be linked in a joint venture called Broadband Partners," said Bill Savoy, president of Allen's investment arm, Vulcan Ventures Inc. of Bellevue.
"The next wave of consumers who will embrace the Internet won't be those with PCs," Savoy said. "It will be those with TVs."
The four partners in the joint venture are:
RCN Corp., a Princeton, NJ, operator of a fiber-optic network in which Allen, thanks to a $1.65 billion investment yesterday, now owns 27 percent. Allen already owned 4.5 percent of RCN.
Go2Net Inc., a Seattle-based network of Web sites, about 35 percent owned by Allen.
High Speed Access Corp., a Denver provider of high-speed Internet access over cable modems, 38 percent owned by Allen.
Charter Communications Group, St. Louis, with 3.6 million subscribers, owned entirely by Allen and expected to go public later this month in a $3.5 billion public stock offering.
"Go2Net will be the major provider of services for the venture," said spokesman Mark Peterson...
He said it will offer versions of new or existing services, modified to take maximum advantage of the high speeds offered by the cable modems..."Those services could include entertainment, electronic commerce, games and video on demand," Peterson said.
"Additional services to be offered will include e-mail, instant messaging and chat facilities," Savoy said. He acknowledged the venture will compete "in a narrow sense" with Microsoft's WebTV.
Savoy said Broadband Partners' offerings will be available in late 2000 to Charter and RCN subscribers.
They will be then be offered to other cable companies.
Broadband Partners will be headquartered in an undisclosed location on the West Coast and will be run by a management team yet to be assembled, according to Vulcan.
10/5/1999 - Seattle Times article
Allen Busy Sewing Up His Wired World
by Helen Jung
archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com
...Allen has secured all the blocks needed to construct that vision - a highly connected world where people communicate, shop and enjoy entertainment via high-speed links hooked up to televisions.
The pieces are all there. Now let's see what they build.
"We alone can determine our own success or failure," said Bill Savoy, president of Vulcan Ventures. "We think that all the elements necessary to create a compelling service exist in our portfolio."
Allen's not the only one doing this. AT&T, for instance, snapped up cable company TCI and Excite@Home and is working toward delivering phone, TV and Internet service all as a single package.
But Vulcan, perhaps because it is driven by a few key personalities rather than a layer of megacorporation managers, seems to project a more unified vision of what it will put on those pipes leading into the home. AT&T hasn't given clear signals of how Excite's Internet site is included in its future.
Meanwhile, Allen's joint venture expects to launch by the end of 2000 an interactive site designed for those accessing the Internet over their televisions. The site, which in technospeak is called a "portal," will serve as a main destination for Internet users, providing them with news, entertainment and other services.
Building the portal requires more than a few quick fixes to the existing Go2Net Internet site, said Russell Horowitz, Go2Net's chief executive officer.
"To create the definitive offering, you need to bring together the leading companies with particular expertise in a number of areas, and create a company that is a convergence of that expertise," Horowitz said.
The joint venture, named Broadband Partners, does that by joining Vulcan's numerous properties with RCN (telecommunications), Go2Net (Internet information site), Charter Communications (the country's fourth-largest cable company) and High Speed Access (fast Internet cable connections).
It won't be easy.
"It's not like anyone's ever done this before," said David McCourt, RCN chief executive. "We cannot follow someone else's mold, because we're creating something from scratch."
The companies wouldn't divulge the specifics of the portal-in-progress. "But here's one possible permutation," Horowitz said. "Imagine viewing a movie trailer on television, clicking a button, finding out its next showing at the nearest theater and buying tickets over the television, all without getting off the couch.
Then, apply it 12 different ways," Horowitz said. "This really looks at the point where the wired world comes together."
10/7/1999 - Redherring article
Vulcan Ventures Deeper Into Broadband
by Gracian Mark
redherring.com
(also: #reply-11476981)
Vulcan Venture's $1.65 billion investment in telecommunications company RCN (Nasdaq: RCNC) will help transform the television set from a one-way receiver into an interactive device for traversing the Web, according to William Savoy, Vulcan's president.
"There will be [television] screens everywhere," said Mr. Savoy, during a conference call on Monday about Vulcan's new deals.
"The Internet is a communications paradigm shift," said Mr. Savoy." You have to think, 'If only the functionality that is available on PC was available on the television.'"
Vulcan Ventures, the investment vehicle for Microsoft (Nasdaq:
MSFT) cofounder and Vulcan majority shareholder Paul Allen,
announced Monday that it would invest $1.65 billion in RCN. Based in Princeton, New Jersey, RCN develops advanced fiber-optic networks to provide a wide range of telecommunications services such as
local and long-distance telephone, video programming and data services...
WEB SPACE CONVERGENCE
On Monday Vulcan also announced it was forming
Broadband Partners, a joint venture with other companies
backed by Mr. Allen, including Charter Communications, RCN, Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET), and High Speed Access (Nasdaq: HSAC). Broadband Partners will provide portals optimized for broadband connections to customers of Charter and RCN who receive high-speed Internet services through TV set-top boxes...
Go2Net will provide the portal to the rest of the Web, as well as to other Vulcan investments...
INTRUDER ALERT
These deals raised eyebrows, as it makes Paul Allen's wired world a serious competitor to other broadband moguls in the making, including the team of AT&T (NYSE: T) and Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM)...
WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE
...This broadband model is something you've never seen before... we're trying to build something around the capacity we know exists.
This is not a retrofit."
10/8/1999 - BusinessWire article,
by Interactive Business Channel (ibchannel.com),
Contact: Matthew Marcus (949) 442-8819
Vulcan Ventures $1.65 billion investment in RCN last week will help transform the television set from a one-way receiver into an interactive device for traversing the Web, according to William Savoy, Vulcan's president. "There will be (television) screens everywhere," said Savoy.
Broadband Partners will provide portals optimized for broadband connections to customers of Charter and RCN, who receive high-speed Internet services through TV set-top boxes.
Go2Net will provide the portal to the rest of the Web, as well as to other Vulcan investments..."
10/29/1999 - Raging Bull's Cyberstock Investment Report
Vulcan Vision
(#reply-11755752)
The Starship Enterprise has finally landed on planet earth, and it's not a Vulcan named Spock that's piloting this New Age cyber-vessel...Paul Allen's estimated $40 billion net worth does leave him a one of the most powerful men in the solar system.
Paul Allen envisions a world that will seemlessly link homes and offices via computers, televisions, Internet appliances, and telephones. Forget just making video-on-demand and interactive television a reality. We're talking George Jetson meets "2001: A Space Odyssey" kind of futuristic plans.
Broadband Partners
Allen is clearly attempting to blend these two worlds together via Vulcan and Charter. Nothing making this plan more evident than the announcement earlier this month of the formation of an Allen-led joint venture called Broadband Partners.
This joint venture is a laundry list of Vulcan portfolio companies that includes RCN, Charter, High Speed Access, and Go2Net (GNET). Broadband Partners plans to launch an interactive TV-based portal early next year that will initially be targeted to Charter set-top box owners, and potentially other cable companies. To me, this is the time that Allen has combined pieces of his connectivity and content portfolio all under one roof that represents Allen's own United Nations of cyberspace. Content meets connectivity, finally. It also positions the new joint venture as a hot broadband content and distribution play that Allen can flip to the public sometime next year.
Allen's Portal Platform
Domination of the Net is still and always be an eyeball game. Controlling various connectivity conduits to a broadband world is nice, but without a massive aggregation point as the intersection between content and connectivity, Allen was left with a large gap in his Wired World puzzle. He filled this gap in March when he surprised the investment world by announcing he would acquire a sizable minority stake in portal site Go2Net. When the deal finally closed in mid-June, Allen ended up plunking down $426 million for a 34% stake.
Go2Net has managed to claw its way up to #12 on Media Metrix's Top 50 sites for September with nearly 10 million unique visitors last month. Without doubt, <g>Go2Net has quickly become a cornerstone component to Allen's Broadband Partners initiative.
In the words of Allen's favorite guitar player, Jimi Hendrix: "I stand up next to a mountain and chop it down with the edge of my hand." Cyber-rivals, you've been warned: Allen is playing for keeps. Mountains won't be all this Vulcan will be chopping down if he can become the first Net architect to blend content, connectivity, and commerce. If that happens, critics may have to start calling Bill Gates the lucky zillionaire instead.
11/15/1999 - Forbes magazine article (pgs. 186-192),
Paul Allen Bandwith Believer
by Toni Mack & Physllis Berman
...since 1998, Allen, second only to Gates as the World's richest man, has flung some $24.5 billion into a mad buying spree aimed at broadband plays--cable systems, wireless modems, web portals and more!
Broadband Buddies:
Russell Horowitz, newest addition to the inner circle, Go2Net's chief will juice up the portal for Allen's broadband plays.
The Executor:
In early days of Microsoft Paul Allen was the Big Idea guy and Bill Gates made it happen. It is much the same at Vulcan Ventures: Allen provides the vision, and it's up to Bill Savoy to deliver it.
3/9/2000 -CHTR press release
St. Louis (Business Wire)
Charter Communications Nears Test Phase
of Unique Broadband Service
Charter Communications, Inc., a pioneer in interactive services over the television, is nearing the consumer-testing phase of a unique new service designed to increase a customer's enjoyment of the television viewing experience. The service is being developed with Broadband Partners, a joint venture with Charter, Go2Net, HSA, and Vulcan Ventures, said Mary Pat Blake, Charter's Senior Vice President fro Marketing & Programming.
"We have a number of exciting initiatives under way that we believe will result in must-have services that we will offer customers on Charter's cable communications network.
She said Broadband Partners, which Charter, Go2Net, HSA, and Vulcan formed last fall, is developing a service "that gives customers a more valuable, personalized TV viewing experience by providing additional content and services, useful and timely information, entertainment and commerce in a friendly and easy-to-use format."
The service offers a "whole house solution," meaning each person in a household can customize the service to his or her interests," she said. "For example, one person may want to check just the same 10 stocks in her portfolio every day, while another person may customize his screens to show local news, lottery scores and movie schedules," Blake said.
Charter already is an industry leader in interactive TV services. The company has launched Internet access over the television via WorldGate in more that seven markets to date. WorldGate is an easy-to-learn service that lets customers surf the Internet over their televisions using a remote control or special wireless keyboard.
"By pairing the aggressive roll-out of advanced digital set-top boxes with some exciting services that take advantage of our expansive broadband capacity, Charter expects to see the majority of its 6.2 million customers subscribing to digital services within the next five years," Blake said. |
