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Gold/Mining/Energy : Alantra Venture Corp AVB-V -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cookie Monster who wrote (52)	3/7/2000 2:47:00 PM
From: Dan Hamilton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59

Hello, anyone out there? I got into this one just before the rise - around $1.15. They have a name change planned for April, and some more contracts in the works. This could have legs up into the high single digits if the market holds up. Here's an article on satellite services needing to find the right niches... sounds like Alantra. Challenges for satellite broadband multimedia Ingley, Carol Satellite Communications (Atlanta) Vol. 24 Issue 1 Jan 2000 SOURCE TYPE: PERIODICAL PM_ID: 18822 ISSN: 01477439 The three areas of dramatic growth in the telecommunications marketplace over the next decade are forecasted to be broadband, the Internet and wireless. As a wireless technology that is particularly adept at the delivery of video and data, satellites are well positioned to be players in all these market areas. Satellite broadband multimedia systems that are online or in the planning stage include enhanced direct-to-home (DTH) systems, Ka- and Ku- band two-way multimedia systems and global two-way systems such as Teledesic and Skybridge. These systems are in the fast lane. The formidable challenges ahead for all of these satellite broadband multimedia systems include: articulating a data and/or data-video strategy; identifying markets; positioning satellite technology in the minds of consumers. For systems on line and for those not on line, these are important hurdles to clear. At stake are billions of dollars worth of market share. These broadband multimedia systems are also at a crossroads. They must take the time to learn from the recent setbacks faced on the satellite industry's narrowband side by Iridium and ICO Global Communications. But there is precious little time and it must be used wisely. As a foothold of sorts, it might be smart to dust off an old anecdote from the satellite history book. Many times these stories tell how businesses in an industry really work. In the early days of satellites, a businessman knocked at the door of a well established satellite company with the idea of using domestic satellite capacity for television distribution. At that time, however, domestic satellites were thought to be ideally suited for voice and data only. After meeting with numerous executives, this entrepreneur was quietly and unceremoniously led away. Since then, of course, satellite technology has been widely used as a point-tomultipoint technology, finding itself ideally suited for television distribution, in most cases more so than terrestrial systems At issue here is being idea led and having the foresight that the idea will appeal to the market and not vice versa (i.e. having the market come to the company and adapting the technology). It's a subtle difference but an important one. In the book "Competing for the Future," the authors (Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad) say that the successful companies over the next decade, in fact, will not be customer led. It will be the idea-led, well-strategized companies who are able to grab the following types of customers - unserved customers with unarticulated needs and unserved customers with articulated needs -- which will succeed. How do you create an idea-led company environment and a strategy catering to unserved customers? Who are those customers anyway? According to Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad, the successful companies will have foresight. As a definition, they point out, "As much as anything, foresight comes from really wanting to make a difference in people's lives." The satellite industry now faces a new market: high-speed interconnection to the Internet. And it faces potent competition on the terrestrial side. Both digital subscriber lines and cable modems, as well as fiber optics, will be able to provide handily that service to the consumer and small business. The terrestrial alternative will in many cases be the chosen one. Satellite broadband multimedia systems must aggressively find their own niches. They will find their own markets by finding a way to make a difference in people's lives. And if the satellite industry is really going to make a difference in people's lives - and it is well poised to do so - it may just have to keep having that conversation: in meetings, with vertical markets, with consumers, with the wide variety of markets that they will be reaching toward. In other words, the successful companies will go, in one way or another, to the marketplace and find out what the market wants. An example of note: In the late 1960s Soichiro Honda decided that he wanted to make a world car. Honda sent engineers around the world, observing the relationship between the citizens of those countries and their automobiles. This information was used to design the first Civic. Adapting a similar approach might fill the gap of what appears to be particularly missing for these satellite broadband multimedia systems: a satellite strategy for two-way Internet high-speed access for consumers using their PCs and for small businesses. Hindsight is notoriously 20/20. It will be the satellite broadband multimedia systems that have 20/20 foresight that will succeed in this highly competitive industry. Comments? backhaul@intertec. com By Carol Ingley President CA. Ingley &Co.