To: Citidude who wrote (23916 ) 1/3/1998 10:16:00 PM From: gunther Respond to
Chris, I am just listing the facts I saw....They seem to be pointing one thing.. that FTEL is slowly strengthening its ties with Worldcom. This certainly is a good sign. In my opinion, a large carrier such as Worldcom(+MCI) might be interested in a small company like FTEL because Ftel has 1) excellent telephony technology available at the right time 2) faith in the ability of Ftel to deliver products. The combination of an internet backbone (UUNET) plus merger of telephone companies (MCI+WilTel) plus aquisition of network rights (Compuserve & AOL) clearly indicates that Worldcom is planning to be number one internet telephony company (Atleast after AT&T and GTE deals fell apart in the last minute). FTEL gateway products serve Worldcom's goals just in time. This is not to say that Worldcom might not choose more than one telephony company., who knows..these things change overnight. I also beleive that relationships with previous employer certainly would help foster new contracts. Factor in the personel connections Mr. Thornton can bring to FTEl and help negotiate new contracts with Worldcom, because of his experience at SITA/Wiltel(I strongly believe this may be another reason, why he might be brought into FTEL, besides his marketing expertise).
