Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David H. Zimmer who wrote (6192)	6/9/1999 1:08:00 PM
From: TLindt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

AT YOUR SERVICES The advent of new IP-based communications services will further blur the already indistinct categories among service providers by blending the concepts of voice, data, and videoconferencing. Fred Briggs, MCI WorldCom's chief technology officer, offers an example: A customer connects to the Internet to find a product on an electronic-commerce Web site, calls a service representative (without disconnecting from the Internet) to discuss the product, watches an online video demonstration that the representative has "pushed" to him in real time, and makes his purchase -- sending and receiving email from friends all the while. Such a transaction would render traditional categorizations of the communications industry obsolete. As Mr. Briggs's example suggests, one area where the new services can be expected to take hold is e-commerce. MCI WorldCom might be the first commco to send out a monthly bill for e-commerce purchases on top of charges for local, long-distance, and Internet-access services. "We aren't necessarily going to compete with Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and those companies," says Mr. Briggs. "But we will enable them to provide services around the products that they want to sell." MCI WorldCom's assistance, he says, might include things like helping vendors bill customers and distribute goods. The result, according to Ford Cavallari of Renaissance Worldwide, a consulting firm, is that "telecommunications providers could be a viable alternative to plastic credit cards." Already, through the company's partnership with CheckFree Holdings (Nasdaq: CKFR), MCI WorldCom's residential customers can pay their phone bills online. herring.com