The best I can do.
(12/09/96; 4:30 p.m. EST)<br>
By <a href="mailto:ldignan@cmp.com">Larry Dignan</a>, <a href="/investor/investor.html">TechInvestor</a><p>
Despite doomsayers and sometimes flagging stock prices, executives from
the leading search engine companies were bullish about their futures.<P>
Officials from Infoseek, Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos and OpenText made their pitches Monday
at a conference sponsored by Bloomberg L.P. and Mecklermedia in New York.<p>
The executives highlighted their growing ad-revenue bases and business plans while emphasizing that
they will be more than just a search engine company. Although the four
publicly-traded search engine companies are barely six months old, they already seem to be finding
their niches.<p>
Yahoo! and Excite are pursuing the consumer-oriented media company approach; Infoseek is positioning itself
as search engine for corporate users; Lycos is inking licensing deals in combination with
ad revenue; and Open Text is chasing the intranet market.<p>
Here's a brief look at the players:<p>
<ul>
<li>Infoseek: Robin Johnson, president and CEO of Infoseek, said his company
will target business users. Johnson said many of Infoseek's users
search from corporate networks instead of home. Johnson also said
Infoseek had a click-through rate of 4.5 percent for its ads. "We will be
targeted, rather than mass market," said Johnson.<p>
<li>Yahoo!: Jeff Mallett, a senior vice president for Yahoo!,was predictably bullish on the
search engine arena. He should be--Yahoo! is the clear leader. He detailed Yahoo!'s local
and global efforts. "I'm bullish on this space," he said. "And there's space for everyone for a little while."<p>
<li>Excite: Co-founder Joseph Kraus said its recent alliance with
America Online and acquistion of WebCrawler propelled the Yahoo! competitor from fifth to first place. "This reduces it to a two-horse race," said Kraus. He compared
Excite's business model to a cable-TV model such as CNN that slices and dices content for different advertisers. When asked whether
Excite would continue to have three brands--Magellan, WebCrawler and Excite--Kraus said the company would
most likely have two brands. Excite expects to post earnings in fiscal 1997.<p>
<li>Open Text: Thomas Jenkins, president of the company, said Open Text is focused on the
intranet market because the company has doubts about the ad-revenue business model. Open Text technology
is integrated with groupware and searches among the
various corporate legacy systems. Revenue
comes from licensing fees. "We don't really have any competition," said Johnson. "We see classic document management companies entering the market."
<p>
<li>Lycos: Robert Davis, president and CEO of the company, said the company is coming America Online-like with
its Web interface. Lycos has also made a splash with its multimedia search engine that
finds photos, video as well as text. Lycos is also diversifying its revenue model with licensing fees with
companies such as AT&T and Dun & Bradstreet.<p>
</ul>
Industry watchers generally agreed with the search engine officials.
"The search engine market will continue to grow," said Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
"There will be two or three big players, but others segregate into niches. The market is large enough that
all can be successful." |
