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Technology Stocks : CheckFree Holdings Corp. (CKFR), the next Dell, Intel? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JB who wrote (767)	12/17/1998 7:49:00 PM
From: Benny Baga	Respond to of 20297

>>>The downside is the cost for advertising. The branding I was thinking of wouldn't cost a dime, just a little tag when you enter E-Bill that says "Powered by CheckFree", you can use a small font if you want. >>>The second negative is if you brand with Yahoo, other portals might chose a competitor. Three points: 1. CheckFree stayed in the background with Banc One, Wells Fargo, Key Bank, First Union and PNC Bank. But all of these banks decided to try TransPoint anyway. Not that CheckFree should brand banks (TP isn't either), banks are sensitive. Although, Portals seem to be more than willing to brand (i.e. Yahoo). 2. The only competitor is Microsoft (a.k.a. TransPoint), who owns MSN, a direct competitor of all the portals. Yahoo and AOL would be foolish to count on Microsoft to support their E-Bill service. 3. Transpoint will be branding portals (i.e. MSN). Benny (IMHO)

To: JB who wrote (767)	12/17/1998 9:38:00 PM
From: Paul Franceus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20297

To brand or not to brand? The downside is the cost for advertising, the money might be better spent elsewhere. Does the customer really care they are using CKFR. Is .10 cents of revenue worth $5.00 to advertise (AMZN strategy) The second negative is if you brand with Yahoo, other portals might chose a competitor. If you stay in the background you are a partner not a competitor. I'm in favor of branding. A brand can be a wonderful thing. After all, brand is almost the only thing that makes the Coca-Cola company worth anything at all. And look at Intel. You could easily have made the argument (and many did) that intel was crazy to advertize "intel inside." After all, who cares as long as it's fast and compatible with the software I want to run. Well that simple act by intel was nearly enough to drive all their competitors out of business. Heck, we even have Intel ads with Homer Simpson in them. This is for a microprocessor? Paul --