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

To: gpowell who wrote (21155)	4/20/2000 11:56:00 AM
From: M. Frank Greiffenstein	Respond to of 29970

gpowel, thanks for upgrading my knowledge about xDSL. I had no idea. DocStone

To: gpowell who wrote (21155)	4/20/2000 3:09:00 PM
From: David Nelson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

I don't quite understand your comments. There is no reason I can see that ATHM won't support xDSL in the future. It would be poor vision on the part of the current management to think that cable is all there is. And they don't. And Advertising? AOL can tell you that advertising works! This is really not an either/or decision. It's my guess that ATHM will ultimately support both DSL and Cable just as AOL is about to do. AOL is rolling out DSL in some areas and cable in others. Cable has always been a good solution for cable companies. Afterall, they are cable companies. DSL is a good solution for phone companies. Afterall, they are in the phone business. But the business of a broadband delivery company such as ATHM or AOL is delivery. Excite will add the content part of the equation. Ultimately both companies will compete on eachother's turf and new technologies are coming down the pike to solve many of the current problems since neither cable or DSL can support thousands of simultaneous downloads of full motion video... Cable is too slow and is a shared resource which causes even more problems as more users join the party. DSL is just too slow. And that's implicit in the promises that both factions make. Before you jump on me, read on! When cable is finally ramped up, everyone will be complaining about how slow cable is because it is a shared resource. DSL is technically faster and has other superior capabilities than Cable, but still can't deliver. New users are astounded at the speed of CABLE and DSL when compared to modem speeds, but 100Mbps over networks is even slow when you are trying to deliver multiple simultaneous full sized, full motion video data streams to more than 10 users. And HDTV will require 8 times the bandwidth of the current low-res NTSL standard. Cable and DSL do deliver video now, but not high quality full motion video. They only do a half-assed job. Currently, cable has too many problems related to the shared nature of the system, and DSL could with 320x240 and 15 fps. Neither can deliver 30 fps full motion video... And that is what everyone wants. The bandwidth requirements are just too great for either system. Even Professional Digital Production Systems get bogged down and are constantly wrestling with delivery problems to ONE NTSL composite video output port under production conditions. We are a long way off still. Everyone involved will have to upgrade entire delivery systems in the near term just to meet current promises let alone provide adequate support for HDTV which is where the computer and the TV will likely become similar devices. And some of you may think that I am all wet even talking about TV, but think about it for a few minutes. Both Cable and DSL are just stopgaps which will lead to other (fiberoptic non-shared whatever...) technologies, orders of magnitudes faster than what today's technology can deliver. And both AOL and ATHM will be there, delivering these new technologies. And don't laugh either. Because of my former status as Editor-in chief of Windows Magazine, I was invited to many closed sessions at Microsoft prior to new product introductions. At one of these, about 9 years ago and prior to the introduction of the first version Windows NT, one of the reporters asked Steve Balmer, now president of Microsoft and the second richest man on the planet, about NTs memory requirements. Steve said that NT would work with 2 megabytes of memory but he recommended 4 megs for satisfactory performance and up to 16 megabytes for optimal performance. Well the entire room groaned since the average PC at that time was shipped with 2 megs of ram. Nuf said. I think that a longer term view may be necessary to realize ATHM's full potential. When I invested in AOL in 1993, it was nothing more than a Macintosh BBS. They were still trying to get the wrinkles out of the Windows 3.1 version and Windows 95 was still a twinkle in Bill Gates eye (well more than that, but not publicly). Most people were using 2400 baud modems. 9600 wasn't mainstream until 95, 14,400 another year later, and the World Wide Web (such as we know it with a GUI interface) was still in it's infancy. Many people are still using 28,800 modems and DSL is still around the corner, but time marches on. By the time DSL and Cable reach saturation in the US both will already have been abandoned in favor of faster technologies and are, for all intents and purposes, already obsolete. By 2002, home computers will have 1.5 gigahertz pentiums in them--and you will be complaining about the speed of your garage door opener because it still uses a 486. I switched from Cable to DSL a year ago because I got tired of fighting with the neighbor's kid over the use of my hard drive. Cable has serious security problems. DSL is still too slow for my purposes. COX Cable has only recently solved most of the security issues in my area. The purpose of this dialog is only to illustrate how immature this new technology is and how very far all we all have to go. ATHM's stock price has a long way to go and will get there. It'll probably be a 20 to 40 bagger from here in less than 5 years as the market matures. AOL has done at least that well for me and they are just entering into the next phase of their growth. The little bbs company bought Time Warner and Ted Turner is back sailing his America's Cup boats LOL. ATHM stockholders are just now waking up to the real competition. If you look at my posts 3 years ago on this thread, I was yammering about how ATHM's biggest competitor was AOL. I was spammed by the thread as a charlatan. Three years later the thread clearly recognizes AOL's threat. ATHM has a lot of money behind them and will be a big winner. The technology has a long way to go. ATHM will be there too. Cable shmable, DSL smells... Your 18 dollar stock will be 400 to 800 bucks or more (before splits), 2000 shares at 18 stuffed in a drawer, 3 or 4 splits later and a 200 dollar price tag will be well over six million dollars. Just give it some time. And if you use just a little leverage, you could even double or triple that. It takes time and patience to make money. Support the price now and then never look back. When AOL flew from 40 to 72 and then plunged to 20 dollars everyone told me to dump the stock. What did I do? I bought 5000 more shares at 22 7/16. (that's the presplit equivalent of about a buck today). If you need proof, go to the AOL (AWOL at that time) thread in September of 1996. AOL is now trading at 60 times what I paid for it and it is considered the premo Web investment according to Merril Lynch. When I was buying, Meryl was dubious about AOL's future prospects and pundits (learned men) other than me (I know a little about stocks but quite a bit about technology and knew enough to start Windows Magazine-originally OS/2 and Windows Magazine in 1988-see how things change) were saying that Microsoft's MSN was going to kill AOL. Then AOL turned on the advertising and dropped the price to 19.95 for unlimited use. I've still got a few of their hi-tech frisbees that I keep around to remind me that everyone poopooed AOLs advertising strategy and the shorts were saying it was headed for 10. Well you know the rest and it was at this time that I was yammering on in this thread about how AOL was ATHM's biggest competitor and the thread couldn't see the forest for the trees. Don't turn away from ATHM now, Hell, they may just buy AOL in a few years with inflated stocks just like AOL bought Time Warner... You never know. And I haven't even gone into the Excite portion of this franchise. It's time to backup-up the truck! Mark my words. Grab all you can. --Dave

To: gpowell who wrote (21155)	4/20/2000 8:20:00 PM
From: ld5030	Respond to of 29970

Excellent post gp. I believe your arguments have been placed on this thread many times before, but not for quite awhile and not quite as succinctly. As I begin to digest the quarterly I am getting less upset about it. Cable is still the future. It's cheaper and faster. Cable companies are certainly much more motivated, as evidenced by the subs growth. It's time to get those subs, now. I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the free trial offer stuff, maybe even extending the period. It's important to get them in the door before OA. Perhaps it is too early to ask the question, but I wonder when OA hits whether the cable co can recommend an ISP. Sure, they may offer 15 ISP's, but AtHome is the recommended one, maybe even the default one if one is not requested. One concern--do you really think it possible to add one million subs in a quarter? How many trucks does that take? Let's see, 4 subs per truck per day * 90 days per quarter * X number of trucks = 1 million subs per quarter. X = 2800 trucks.