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To: G_Barr who wrote (23646)	7/19/2000 1:04:51 AM
From: FR1	Respond to of 29970

I would have liked to see them buy Chello outright... That's the first thought that everyone had. Things to keep in mind: Consider that there are only 2 people making this decision: Malone and Armstrong. Malone has majority interest in all businesses directly down to Chello and Malone's business is a tracking stock of ATT. So the two of them could tell ATHM and Chello to do whatever they wanted. Personally, I think they are pretty smart and they put a lot of thought into this. They must have thought of all the angles and decided this is the best path. If I had to guess, I would guess this method is best because they can get approval with the least political conflict. Notice how they waited until all the parents, including MSFT, had their ownership settled with the EU? We will read about it in the months to come and it should be a great story.

To: G_Barr who wrote (23646)	7/19/2000 2:34:31 AM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Personally, I would have liked to see them buy Chello outright for if they defined themselves as a company with "expertise is to create and maintain a BB network" they should be acquiring properties around the world to do so and the fledgling Chello network (which I've read has plenty of service problems) would be an ideal target. I have made this statement repeatedly in the last several months, so we must be in agreement. Instead, they continue their foreign expansion by partnership building which they have been doing for years. While building partnership may be an inexpensive way of expansion, it creates limited value both with respect to sharing revenue and limited control. Indeed. I could have used you today on another board with these words of wisdom. In addition, in doing so you are right that they are giving Chello their "expertise is to create and maintain a BB network" as part of the price of entering the partnership. That is the only way the deal makes sense from Chello's point of view for it seems the value ATHM's assigned interests in the JVs pales in comparaison to chello's assets. Yep. I said that ATHM was using mostly content assets to buy an interest in a broadband network. But I guess, as you said, a big part of what they are bringing to the table is their BB network expertise. Which "content" assets? The only currency they have is the paper they've minted that shareholders must deduct from future expected revenues. The SEC just received the first weather warning of approaching blizzard. Can't argue with you here. For months I had thought the tea leaves pointed to a marginalization and perhaps a spin-off of excite as most of the news and press seemed to focus on the network and the distribution part of the business such as focusing primarily on subscriber growth, abandoning broadband portal, admitting they couldn't compete with the Yahoos of the world, and the AKAM-type deals. I took this as a good sign. But today I heard Bell talking about content being king and the distribution business being a means to build a content business. At this point I'm really not sure what the long term business plan of this company is. You must have been studying my course on ATHM. It's classic Ahhaha. No. You must have arrived at those conclusions independently which proves their validity. I presume that they would not, unless they are idiots, voluntarily release the noncompetes unless they get greater benefits elsewhere. You forget that release from such a condition would be a term of sale. Also, in the international arena the jurisdiction of any state is limited and so you never know how it might appear to be desirable to unload a major property, perhaps due to onerous tax laws.Again, what if Europe had a low yield and China was suddenly opening big time to ATHM, but ATHM needed the cash to go China. Tell me how willing the company would be to retain Chello. After all China would open all the Asias. How's that for adequate consideration? Maybe where we differ is you're presuming that the management are idiots. That's what all the evidence shows. Should we deny what has been demonstrated, Holmes?

To: G_Barr who wrote (23646)	7/19/2000 5:52:07 AM
From: E. Davies	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

Personally, I would have liked to see them buy Chello outright We all would have. However it's crystal clear to me that the market would never have allowed it. ATHM (the stock) would have been severely punished. You print paper with "ATHM" printed on it and the market flushes it down the toilet. Everything @home has bought has rapidly dropped to a valuation of zero in the eyes of the market. Chello would have been no different. ATHM is poisoned. The only hope is move as many of the assets that you can of Excite@Home into a different stock symbol and hope the stench doesn't follow. Eric