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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mike Torrence who wrote (20614)	6/6/1999 8:57:00 PM
From: David E. Taylor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

William: I agree with you 100% on the prospects for an AT&T/AOL deal. Now I've read some of the court filings in the Portland case, I'm convinced AT&T hasn't much of a chance on appeal, despite the public posturing. AT&T would be smart to see the writing on the wall, and cut a deal now with AOL. It would bring AT&T almost instant and rapidly growing cash flow to finance its large pile of new debt. David T.

To: Mike Torrence who wrote (20614)	6/6/1999 9:02:00 PM
From: Brian Malloy	Respond to of 41369

The only thing I'll add is that all along it has been AOL not T in the drivers seat. T and the cable boys must come to AOL first and negotiate from a position of weakness. The court ruling as you point out will only serve to accelerate this. T wants to settle not appeal, though they will bluff and position in public. The cost to them of losing the appeal would be ugly. What does T really have? a) A cable system that is old, in need of upgrade and only accesses about 20% of homes (even if they owned every cable company in America they would only be in 40% of homes) and even fewer businesses. b) T cannot even progress with full integration till probably 2001 given the twisted way the cable deals have been put together. c) T which gets 90% of its revenues from the long distance market which is growing at about 4% a year is under attack by hardy hungry competitors like WCOM and QWST. d) It's nice that they went out and brought in Armstrong. Yet, it also shows the lack of vision at T. Have you taken a look at the top talent at QWST, AOL, GBX and many other telecom and computer firms hired over the past four years? T lost its best and brightest because it couldn't see the future. e) Now T is trying to stumble to the future but the strong backs and horses are with their competitors. The markets may have been worried about AOL gaining cable access. But those linear individuals thinking in their typical journalistic if A then B, I don't have an original thought so let me repackage what everyone else says, short term mode savants haven't a clue of the real deal. IMHO

To: Mike Torrence who wrote (20614)	6/6/1999 9:06:00 PM
From: Ed Forrest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

>But the ATHM home page is the most consistently depressing experience you'll ever want to have.< As a @Home user I can support that statement 100%.Why don't you do as I have done.Change your startup home page.30 seconds and your done. Ed Forrest

To: Mike Torrence who wrote (20614)	6/6/1999 10:28:00 PM
From: Hobie1Kenobe	Respond to of 41369

Mike, Agreed on the ATHM content - unless XCIT really gets involved in upgrading ATHM's content, these guys are toast. I have ATHM and AOL - love the speed and constant access. While I generally would prefer the gov't stay out of the way on commerce issues, I do think Case and Pittman have proven themselves the premier executives in this business by forgoing an expensive cable acquisition in lieu of pressure on all fronts for access to the "dumb pipes" (ATHM's CEO's quotation, not mine). Good trading. JF3