Cavuto Interview AT&T>
AT&T Solutions Pres & CEO - Interview
FDCH CEO Wire/Associated Press
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS
COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM
AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NEIL CAVUTO, THE CAVUTO BUSINESS
REPORT: Who says the former Ma [ Bell ] is a
boring old maid? Well, no one who's been
watching the stock. [ AT&T ] (Company: AT&T
Corporation; Ticker: T; URL:
att.com shares closed at an all-time
high, 83 1/16 in today's stock market rally. The
telecom giant's outsourcing unit AT&T Solutions,
a very big part of the phone company's giant success story. Rick Roscitt
heads that AT&T unit. Mr. Roscitt joins us right now. Rick, good to see
you.
RICK ROSCITT, PRESIDENT & CEO, AT&T SOLUTIONS: Good to
see you Neil.
CAVUTO: This [ IBM ] (Company: International Business Machines
Corporation; Ticker: IBM; URL: ibm.com deal, where
essentially you became an Internet play as well didn't hurt matters, did it?
ROSCITT: Well, the IMB deal has just been, you know, I expected big
things when we were able to close that deal and we announced it the next
day and the stock took off. It's been on a ride since then. But the reaction
from the customer segment, the Wall Street analysts, from the industry
analysts has just been overwhelming, positive, can't find anything wrong with
it. So we're delighted. Market capitalization more than covers the purchase
price on the deal.
CAVUTO: Indeed and the [ AirTouch Communications ] (Company:
AirTouch Communications Inc.; Ticker: ATI; URL:
airtouch.com and that Bell Atlantic (Company: [ Bell Atlantic
Corporation ] ; Ticker: BEL; URL: bellatlantic.com, Vodafone
(Company: Vodafone Group Plc; Ticker: VOD; URL:
vodafone.co.uk, of course that further draws the heightened
interest in.
ROSCITT: Well, Wall Street's starting to figure out that AT&T, when you
look at what it is today, versus what you might have thought of it several
years ago, we have an enormous wireless footprint. We're in the Internet
business with our World Net business and by the way, we picked up over a
million Internet customers with this IBM transaction we just did. So we are
now.
CAVUTO: But what does that make you, like an NSN (ph), an AOL
(Company: [ America Online ] ; Ticker: AOL ; URL: aol.com,
what are you?
ROSCITT: Well, AOL obviously has the largest footprint in that market in
the ISP market. But we're clearly a.
CAVUTO: You're the number two service provider.
ROSCITT: We'll be Internet service provider. We'll be the number two
Internet service provider in the country, post the IBM closing.
CAVUTO: Let me ask you this about, another reason for Wall Street's
interest in you guys is talk that you're going to have all these stock spin offs
that may be part of the wireless and cable business, the scoop up with TCI,
maybe it's part of that spun off. Maybe AT&T Solutions is spun off. Where
do we stand on all this?
ROSCITT: Well, Mike Armstrong is intent on running AT&T as one
company. We've had a lot of conversation about that. The parts needs to be
valued separately. The wireless business, obviously just in the last week,
with the Vodaphone, Bell Atlantic, Airtouch bidding that's going on for the
Airtouch business, drove the whole wireless business market up and AT&T
participates in that pretty heavily with one of the largest footprints in the
world. So the parts are very important. The solutions pieces is coming on
strong, AT&T Solutions. The wireless piece is very large and with a very
healthy growth rate. And so the sum of the parts are important. However,
it's AT&T strategy under Mike Armstrong to run it as one company. And so
I think, you know, the.
CAVUTO: So we won't see a few years from now Rick, like a lot of
different AT&T stocks out there.
ROSCITT: Well, it's hard to forecast whether we'd worry about that or not.
But in terms of how we run the company, it's going to be one AT&T and as
long as Mike Armstrong's there.
CAVUTO: Let me talk a little bit, some comments you had made, talking
about phone calls over the Internet, something I brought up with our last
guest. You had said data network doesn't necessarily have to perform as
well as the regular phone network in every circumstance. Just that it has to
be the best network in the marketplace. Is that a sense that you want to
position AT&T as that company?
ROSCITT: Well, it may be a little out of context. But the context I was
trying to get at and the meaning I'm trying to get there Neil is that what's
important is that you innovate with the network. Value is created today on a
Wall Street firm versus a Main Street firm on how you take the network,
voice, data, image, video and deploy it. It doesn't much matter whether it's
over cable or satellite or over the D Internet itself.
CAVUTO: But just that it's the best of what you've got out there for the time
being.
ROSCITT: It's available. It works to the specifications that help you run
your business. What you want to think about is using the network to connect
to your marketplace, to your customers, to your would-be customers, to
your suppliers. Today the environment is you push a button and you can
order things. You can have instant gratification and relatively quickly you can
receive products.
CAVUTO: You are running now arguably one of the hottest divisions of
AT&T. That's a lot of pressure. Do you ever, I mean with the double digit
type of advances that you've been routinely getting, that can either make you
prince or pauper if it doesn't work out.
ROSCITT: Well, when it's working you're on top of the world. We've been
fortunate. We've grown the business back to back 35 percent two years in a
row. So you start to compound that growth rate and we're off and running.
The IBM transaction obviously will pick the growth rate. It doubles AT&T
Solutions.
CAVUTO: Rick Roscitt, good seeing you again. Happy new year. Very
good new year to you. Rick Roscitt, the president of AT&T Solutions.
END
(Copy: Content and Programming Copyright 1998 Fox News Network,
Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 1998 Federal
Document Clearing House, Inc., which takes sole responsibility for the
accuracy of the transcription. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is
granted to the user of this material except for the user's personal or internal
use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any
material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon
Fox News Network, Inc.'s and Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.'s
copyrights or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a
legal transcript for purposes of litigation.)
Publication Date: January 06, 1999
Powered by NewsReal's IndustryWatch
...back to top |
