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

To: ANANT who wrote (3022)	7/25/1998 7:06:00 PM
From: F. Duckson	Respond to of 11568

Anant, as a former BT and Concert employee, let me suggest that a BT/ATT deal will have little short-term impact on WCOM stock. Long-term is a different story. BT and MCI formed a joint venture company in 1993 to provide international services to their corporate customers. The jv, called Concert Comm. serves many of MCI's Fortune 500 customers. WCOM/MCI inherets these customer accounts and the revenue they generate. WCOM/MCI will continue to buy the international service from Concert and resell it to these customers under their own label. Over time WCOM will shift those customers over to its own international service. No problem. The bad news: BT owns 75% of Concert's assets and gets to keep most of the international network after MCI splits. When ATT and BT join, ATT will sell the story that they can reach farther and provide better international service than WCOM. If you're a multinational that is in the market for international service, that's a pretty compelling story. And a BT/ATT jv will definitely give preference to BT/ATT customers over the service they are selling to WCOM when it comes to customer care. WCOM has a pretty strong international presence, but it doesn't match a combined ATT/BT force. Not yet anyway. Especially in Europe. All this is my opinion only. Duck