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Technology Stocks : USCS -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tyro who wrote (33)	6/27/1998 3:43:00 PM
From: TWICK	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 55

The following article appeared on the front page of the business section of the Sacramento Bee on Saturday, June 27th: "AT&T takeover of TCI could benefit local firm" By Dale Kasler Bee Staff Writer USCS International Inc., the Rancho Cordova-based processor of monthly billing statements for the cable and telephone industries, could get a boost from AT&T Corp.'s proposed takeover of cable's TeleCommunications Inc. The AT&T-TCI deal could herald a wave of mergers uniting the cable and telecommunications technologies. USCS could be sitting pretty because it has a software program that would let a client bill customers for a package of services, including telephone and cable, said company spokeswoman Linda Cutler. The program, called Intellicable, already is being used by USCS clients BellSouth Corp., GTE and Southern New England Telephone Co., which are moving into the video business, Cutler said. The Intellicable program also has been marketed to international clients, she said. Beyond Intellicable, USCS has other systems for clients that want to bill customers for multiple services. "Anything that spurs the convergence market is good for us," she said. Convergence refers to the blurring of lines between telecommunication, television and computing. AT&T has said it intends to use TCI's wires to bring local phone service, high-speed Internet access and other offerings to TCI's cable customers. USCS hasn't cornered the market on convergence billing software, said investment analyst Bruce Carlsmith of NationsBanc Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. Several bill processors have entered the field; an Irish company called Saville Systems Pic focuses exclusively on billing systems for convergent technologies. USCS' stock price jumped 8 percent, Saville's 6 percent, when the TCI deal was announced Wednesday. On Friday, USCS stock closed at $20 a share, down 62 1/2 cents. Ironically, USCS was jolted badly by a bit of news from TCI last August. The cable company, which was USCS' largest customer, announced it was taking its business to a USCS rival. USCS' stock price fell by one-third in one day. Cutler said USCS does some billing work for AT&T. But it's not known whether this week's takeover would enable USCS to recapture the TCI work. END OF STORY