On the other hand if the competition goes public and raises a huge amount of cash, while TV-on-the-web tries to stay private it puts them at a significant disadvantage. Right now they must expand their channels at warp speed. They need a video search engine. They need exponential growth in their servers and internet connection speed, as well as near line storage. These things cost money. Patience is not a virtue when playing at this speed. The money from Ampex got them a good start, but if they are growing these things as fast as they need to, they'll burn through that cash in no time.
The advice given in Burnell54's post was sound in normal business practice, but doesn't apply when you are dealing with an explosively growing business with a negative cash flow. In that type of business, you need cash to grow, and to establish market share. They can't afford to wait to go public because it will stunt their eventual growth, and perhaps kill the company. They need to go public now, if not sooner.
Seriously, the timing of the IPO needs to be such that they can grow as fast as possible, without being concerned about the availability of cash. The market is favorable now, so they need to move fast. Imagine that they wait two months and the market for internet startups collapses. Then they won't be able to get the money that they need on favorable terms. I doubt that the money from AXC will keep them going for more than a few more months. Therefore they are under the gun and know they will need more money. They will need more money, and they can get it on favorable terms today; maybe they can get even better terms in 3 months, but maybe the market will be much worse. Therefore they should go public now and eliminate the risk of an internut collapse preventing them from getting the money they will need to grow. And what is worse, if they can't get money, and the competition already has it, it will be impossible to compete.
Carl
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