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Technology Stocks : John, Mike & Tom's Wild World of Stocks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (1324)	6/14/2000 3:23:00 PM
From: Chip McVickar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2850

Tom, I Kinda Like T too...! I think AT&T may just be the sweet spot of all telecommunications..! It's struggled for a good many years and is restructuring itself away from local telephone (which is a dead market) and building for the future. Long-distance kicks off lots of cash...cable stratagy, which is where phone service is probably headed, so they by TCI and Media 1... It's a $100 million dollar gamble on cable. Like it at these prices for the next 10 years..? I believe this article is missing the point of AT&T's direction. I can already make free phone calls over the internet, local service copper wire supplies and perhaps fiber-optic are old tunes. Wireless - cable and Internet are the future..., especially for the rural America. I like it big time..., although it may stay down for some time. Chip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ More Not-So-Good News From AT&T -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS? AT&T should be the company that businesses go to for all of their telecom needs. A series of deals has allowed the long-distance giant to sell corporate customers an unrivaled menu of local, wireless, Internet, and network-management services. Yet Ma Bell is stumbling. One possible culprit: its failure to fully exploit its local-phone assets. A couple of years ago AT&T bought Teleport Communications Group, a superhot telco that built local networks to bypass the Bell telephone monopolies. The acquisition, one of Mike Armstrong's first moves as CEO, was shrewd, and analysts heralded it as a signal of AT&T's revival. Armstrong tapped Teleport founder Bob Annunziata to run the business services unit. Competitors feared that with a direct connection to business customers, AT&T would be able to push bundles of telecom services. That hasn't quite happened: Annunziata and a number of former Teleporters have long since left the company. Rivals claim AT&T rarely bids against them for local-phone business. AT&T has about 1.5 million local business lines in service, a sixfold increase in the two years since the Teleport deal was announced. In that same period, however, the competitive local phone companies (the cadre of startups trying to grab the Baby Bells' business) have, on average, increased their business lines more than eightfold, according to research by Bear Stearns. "If AT&T had been more aggressive with Teleport, it likely would be in better shape in business services today," suggests James Henry, a Bear Stearns analyst. This lackluster performance underscores AT&T's broader problems. The company recently pared back growth estimates of the business services unit to 8% this year, down from earlier forecasts of 9% to 11%, and lowered 2000 earnings estimates for the entire company. Wall Street slammed the stock accordingly, sending it down 26%. A spokeswoman says that the company is pleased with the growth rates of the local business unit, and that AT&T should install 500,000 more lines by year-end. She blamed the woes in the business segment on AT&T's failure to serve some of its biggest customers. When AT&T transferred its biggest multinational accounts to Concert, its joint venture with British Telecom, account reps didn't know which entity the customers belonged to. The result: Customers were confused and inked future contracts with others. These corporate accounts matter--about half the company's revenues and top-line earnings come from corporate sales. AT&T is juggling a lot right now--its purchase of MediaOne and the deployment of local-phone services to consumers via cable lines, as well as a wireless group IPO. It's also trying to improve its array of products for businesses. Now analysts advise AT&T to bolster sales of data services and push local phone lines. Executives should pay attention to those giant, multinational customers now served by Concert, considering the dismal track record of other international telecom ventures. In other words, think globally, act locally. --Stephanie N. Mehta Copyright ¸ 2000, Time Inc., all rights reserved.