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

To: KW Wingman who wrote (19619)	2/13/2000 2:15:00 AM
From: Rick_Barry	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

I hope ATHM will be like QCOM and TQNT. I am so depressed at current price but keep asking myself "is this a buying opportunity?". Anyone comments about this old article? Pretty depressing to see this guy calling ATHM death. ---------------------------------------------------- The Death of AtHome? Kevin Prigel Excite AtHome NASDAQ:ATHM Jan 5 2000 Monday's surprise announcement from FreeDSL, declaring that the company would give free broadband service to millions across the United States ended up being a lot more fluff than fact. Digging deeper into the details, it was soon discovered that to qualify for "free" DSL service, a user must convince 10 friends to sign-up, plus agree to deal with endless highly targeted advertising. The Free ISP has shown that users are willing to deal with one of those inconveniences, but not both. Despite the hot-air, FreeDSL does raise an interesting question for backers of cable technology. How can you invest in a technology on the premise that you'll be able to charge a premium for it, when an open technology gives well-funded entrepreneurs the opportunity to completely undercut you? The only way to justify an investment in cable infrastructure despite this threat is to believe that your content and community will demand a premium, a la America Online, Do the two largest cable internet access providers have this content and community? The answer is a resounding "no" for Time Warner's RoadRunner, which amounts to nothing more than a glorified ISP. The Excite@Home issue is somewhat more complex. However, I wholeheartedly believe that Excite@Home's attempt to meld content and bandwidth is a complete failure. Given that, the investment thesis for Time Warner's RoadRunner and AtHome is dead, and the market does not even know it. If your looking for a position that should win in a bull or bear market, shorting Excite@Home is the direction to look.

To: KW Wingman who wrote (19619)	2/13/2000 2:30:00 PM
From: sillen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

KW; I tend to be early. I agree ATHM is ahead of it`s time. The only thing that bothers me is the "to-be" self installment. I think it was E. Davis that mentioned it recently in regards to AOL`s claim to send the DSL modem UPS and have the customer up and running within 10 min. Does anyone know how far ATHM is from self-installation? I know you can buy DOCSIS cable modems at the store today, but the truck still needs to roll right? Where is the delay? Is it a software problem or hardware problem? Until self-installation becomes evident I think ATHM`s growth will be as predictable as before. Which is not bad, but it will not take off. Later Sillen