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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jing Qian who wrote (12544)	7/17/1999 3:14:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

If T abandons ATHM, T has no choice but to be forced to work with AOL like the Baby Bells. I don't wish to suggest that T is going to "abandon" ATHM now or any time in the future. But I also don't see the situation as a dichotomous choice between AOL and ATHM. The situation may change, but AOL currently provides nothing but a slight theoretical marketing advantage for a broadband supplier. It's also worth noting that the Baby Bells in general have not been "forced" to work with AOL. Two of the five RBOCs have signed marketing agreements. They're the biggest two, but not the quickest at broadband rollout. The two companies that have been most aggressive at DSL -- US West and BellSouth -- don't have agreements with AOL. USW, for instance has something like 36,000 DSL customers who can choose from dozens of ISPs. AOL is not one of those ISPs. One of the companies that does have a DSL agreement with AOL is BellAtlantic, but take a look at the ISPs currently available on their systems. (http://www.bell-atl.com/infospeed/more_info/pricing.html). Again, AOL is not one of them. Sometime, somewhere, AOL might actually provide someone with a high-speed connection, but so far they seem to be more interested in high-speed lobbying, lawyering, and press-releasing.

To: Jing Qian who wrote (12544)	7/17/1999 3:26:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Jing, re: "Let them..." I know that you didn't mean this to sound as demeaning to ATHM as it probably did to some: "They let ATHM as a proxy to do that." But it's even sad that ATHM, despite the brains behind its being, must be viewed, even through mental slip, in such a light. In some of my previous posts I've asked what kinds of contingency measures ATHM has in hand, as a sovereign entity, in the event that their relationship[s] with their owners unraveled. Beyond the presence and some equity that ATHM has succeeded in achieving in some overseas ventures, I'm still waiting for an answer to that question. Anyone? Or is ATHM so inextricably linked to the whims of its current cable owners that they are prohibited from conjuring up such contingency plans? When the relationships between the founders were strictly bound through industry association (largely glued together through cultural underpinnings) that was an entirely different set of circumstances than those which exist today. With T in the picture now, along with a growing number of other industry related players (the Internet's ISPs, the ASPs, the MP3s, the enterprise VPNs, the independent SOHOs, the day traders, etc.), one would have to think that something has to change. It would be foolish to even consider putting something together at this time anywhere near the restrictive nature that was conceived plausible even five or six years ago. I see the new chemistry as being overweighted at this time with too many countercultural [to the MSO's own] issues to even list here. Those add-ons, nonetheless, will bring most of the future fortunes to the table, and things are surely bound to change at the platform level, as a result. They are changing, they have changed. Can the original concepts which fostered "the consortium" survive under the prevailing restrictive arrangements? This is a paraphrase of an old adage, but it fits: When the market suddenly shifts you must change your game plan immediately. The market has shifted. Regards, Frank Coluccio