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Technology Stocks : CheckFree (CKFR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (5151)	6/15/1998 7:45:00 AM
From: Benny Baga	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8545

Look at this statement: "To date, several of the nation's top-ranked financial institutions are distributing bills with the MSFDC pilot program, including Banc One Corp., KeyBank, Merrill Lynch, Norwest Corp. and Wells Fargo." This statement is an out and out lie. From what I understand the pilots are not off the ground, and I know for a fact that Merrill Lynch will not start piloting this service in late 1998 (according to the MSFDC press release). Benny

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (5151)	6/15/1998 8:08:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Respond to of 8545

some combat power: Online Billing Thins Down June 15, 1998 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PC Week via NewsEdge Corporation : AT&T Corp., Intuit Inc. and startup Just In Time Solutions Inc. are pushing for a standard method for presenting and paying bills online. Open Internet Billing, which is more of a business model than a specification, is a "thin consolidator" architecture based on Microsoft Corp.'s OFX (Open Financial Exchange) specification for online billing. The trio hopes that OIB can balance the concerns of consumers looking for a central interface for all of their online billing and the needs of billers such as AT&T that are reluctant to hand billing data over to consolidation companies. "Billers want control of that customer relationship and to engage directly in a consumer dialogue," said Kevin Duffy, manager of billing strategy at AT&T, in Basking Ridge, N.J. "In our experience, maintaining a direct relationship with our customers, for any biller, is extremely important. We don't want to lose touch with our customers." At the heart of OIB, which AT&T, Intuit and Just In Time will begin pushing at the Billers 98 conference in Atlanta next week, is the thin consolidator model, which is one of three online presentment and billing models now in use. The other two are the thick consolidator model and the direct model. The direct model lets an online biller have uninterrupted access to a customer, similar to what AT&T now has with some of its customers. Its advantages are obvious to the biller: The direct model is a customized service that answers all of the needs of the billing company without the need to support often-cumbersome standards. The downside for consumers, however, is that they can deal with only one biller at a time and have no mechanism to consolidate their own payment process. The thick consolidator model, on the other hand, lets a consumer pay all bills through one service, such as MSFDC, a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and First Data Corp. But there's a downside to this model, too: In order to support the thick consolidator model, billers must give up their customer data to a third party--something that companies such as AT&T are unwilling to do. The thin consolidator model of OIB, the three companies argue, combines the best of the direct and thick models. OIB allows for a consolidator, which lets consumers pay their bills in one place--whether it is an online consolidator or a software model such as Quicken. It also allows the biller to hold on to its financial and customer data. OIB is supported by a handful of software suites. In particular, it can run off Just In Time's BillCast suite. BillCast OFX Server starts at $150,000; BillCast Presentation Server starts at $50,000. <<PC Week -- 06-15-98>> [Copyright 1998, Ziff Wire] ÿ

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (5151)	6/15/1998 8:23:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Respond to of 8545

"The rapid growth of our biller pilot program reflects the high level of support and momentum for MSFDC's integrated system," said Darren Remington, co-president of MSFDC. He means MSFDC can bully some into the channel. "As one of the nation's largest utilities, Southern California Edison firmly believes it is important to satisfy our customers' desire for secure, convenient, state-of-the-art payment options," said Bill Reinhold, director of mass markets for Southern California Edison. "With MSFDC's innovative solution, we expect to meet our customers' needs and enhance the quality of cutting-edge services and products that they have come to expect from us." Reminds me of the animated scene from "the Wall" where the school master is beating the kids, but[he] is actually a puppet getting whipped by his "fat and psychopathic wife" Is ot just me(and clarify also if this all sounds like sour grapes), or do all these statements seem to have flowed from one mind and just "fill in the spokespersons name"?

To: Brooks Jackson who wrote (5151)	6/15/1998 8:43:00 AM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8545

I meant to slip this one in the last post also...... "The rapid growth of our biller pilot program reflects the high level of support and momentum for MSFDC's integrated system," said Darren Remington, co-president of MSFDC. "Adding new billers and financial institutions is key to our growth strategy in the months ahead,..." Wasn't this supposed to be announced in early 98?, and fully operational near the end of summer 98? They must be aware of the adage "speed kills". But "time is money", and CKFR is powering ahead with genesis, and has a program in operation, not just a pilot.