I think @Home is a key ingredient to making this all work. T needs service people to make the internet angle work which is what they get with @Home. The service will evolve into a bundle of things that will fall under the @Home umbrella.
Without @Home, they can't be anything but a backbone for other services and this would not interest me for investment. Look at many of the RBOC's. They all have ISP projects that have varied success, but mostly failure. In the end, they lacked an ingredient which makes AOL, Mindspring, Verio and others a better buy even though you connect through the RBOC network.
So, now you have @Home/Excite developing a new medium of highspeed broadband service which could be different enough to make the old AOL systems a harder make over. AOL has been a great sell because they make it easy.
But, the future is a network where you have software applications, entertainment, phone service, data storage off site, e-commerce, messaging, perhaps even remote operations like home security, and many things we've not even thought of that will evolve out of Sun's JINI project. Can AOL compete in this market? They will try and that's why they bought Netscape. Certainly, they didn't care to sell a browser.
Anyway, I think there is a convergence of high speed services and it's not really a bad thing for the country for T to be doing what they do. T will naturally resist openning their cable network, but I don't think it will kill their prospects if they do.
Regards,
Mark
PS Perhaps a wild card here is Yahoo. I wonder how they will fit into this world. Maybe they will need to buy an ISP like Mindspring or Verio. Can they continue to stand alone? What will happen to MSN? This would be an interesting plum for T. MSN seems to be a project with no future. |
