Hi David!
The following current article by Shlomi Cohen is with regard to the impact of ATT's 30 billion dollar purchase of TCI and the impact it will have on VocalTec:
Monday , June 29, 1998 Sun-Thu at 18:00 (GMT+3)
Head To Head
AT&T Buys, Who Profits?
By Shlomi Cohen
AT&T, which acquired
cable giant TCI for more than
$30 billion. This acquisition
amounts to a public declaration on the part of
AT&T that the technological and commercial
future will focus on services via the Internet.
TCI has long since been aware of this, but it
didn't have the billions that AT&T is able to
invest in interactive cables, with tens of millions
of subscribers. Investments of this magnitude
are supposed to provide a living for a host of
high-tech companies, since the cable subscriber
will go shopping, make phone calls and order
movies and so on, through the Internet. The holy
trinity of TV, telephone and computer is coming
together and merging on the Internet.
What does all this mean for Israeli companies in
general and my share portfolio in particular?
It means plenty. For example,
VocalTec (VOCLF) should be celebrating.
AT&T's CEO, in a CNN interview, pointed to the
Internet telephony market as a prime target of
the merged company. Meaning, in the
vernacular, that cable subscribers will be able to
make telephone calls via the cables at ridiculous
prices, thus creating an enormous potential
market for VocalTec. The Israeli company is
already participating in a tender worth tens of
millions of dollars for Internet telephony, recently
published by AT&T. VocalTec is also one of the
few companies that has anything to offer in that
context. This week, I am doubling my VocalTec
holdings in view of the low price and the low risk
($5 cash per VocalTec share).
Kindest regards,
Don |
