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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TokyoMex who wrote (2760)	9/6/1998 2:37:00 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

I am in Berkeley and called a number of times. The bottom line, ATHM told me, is that they don't want to give a specific date and then have to meet it. The reason? Too many variables are in the way and you don't want to become a business that commits to a roll out day and then fails. I ask for the main reasons for time delay and was told part of it is the installation, testing and debugging of equipment in a old metropolitan city (they want to do a really good beta run to prevent opening an area and then discovering major problems) and part of it, believe it or not, is the politics. Every time you discover you need to dig or do any kind of construction in a city you have to go through the a political paperwork jungle (different in every city) which requires that you wait while the city spends a week processing your requests. ATHM told me they are very well aware of the cash that can be made and the SF bay area is #1 on their list. Although they did not mention it, some of it probably has to do with backbone load concerns. Massive deployment like this has never been done before and everything is just theoretical. ATHM wants to make sure the experience is a good one because the success of ATHM business is built on word of mouth satisfied customers. Aahha has a good response along these lines: exchange2000.com