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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MeDroogies who wrote (77829)	2/9/2000 4:11:00 PM
From: rupert1	Respond to of 97611

McDroogies: I have read all your posts about AV. With respect, I think your personal and professional experience of portals is one thing, what COMPAQ could have made of AV by floating it, is another. I have made my points before. Your latest post suggests that COMPAQ would have stick-handled AV's management. Nothing could be further from the truth. AV was already a private company, a wholly owned subsidiary of COMPAQ. After the IPO it would have been a public company answerable to all of its shareholders, not just the majority shareholder. The plan was not to continue with AV as it was before, as you seem to assume, and to that extent your arguments are undercut. The plan was to raise massive cash for AV and to create "internet" rated share values so that AV could develop in every which way was profitable. Of course, COMPAQ would have more than a foot-in-the door should profitable joint ventures arise, and as a major shareholder COMPAQ would be keen to uses its millions of customers to boost AV. Very early on, Schrock and COMPAQ recognised that AV lacked "stickiness" in that users were not lingering long enough, but just passing through, and not enough revenues were being raised. The plan was to change all that. That was the whole point of the IPO. They began to beef up content and to make AV a destination site, and to develop alliances so that AV would develop a strong and sustainable revenue stream. So the plan was to overcome the weaknesses in the kind of model which you continually cite. Now if you were to argue that COMPAQ was incompetent to carry out this plan, or lost its nerve, then I would have to agree. The facts speak for themselves.