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Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Olds who wrote (5372)	2/8/1999 9:07:00 PM
From: Michael Olds	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17679

Thinking out loud. My apologies to those who have this figured out. I would not put this out there, however, if I did not think that there were a great number of investors such as myself who do not quite get this new twist. So: I keep asking myself: “What can TvontheWeb and Broadcast.com do that TCI and NBC cannot do now? The way I see it is that the internet connection and the computer give the broadcaster a multidimensional environment with which to play. You can have an entertaining show going on that the viewer can click on parts of that will take him to further high quality presentations of details that he can ask questions of get answers from and place orders with and so forth. OK so far. Next, I get the narrowcast advantage. If TvontheWeb can stay at the front end of quality improvements in terms of delivery, they will have a start on broadcasting for a wide range of users whose needs are too small for the Cable and TV market. (This looks to me like something that should be franchised. A packaged set up could go into every market where there is now a radio station.) The danger, it looks to me is getting cut off from the wire. Or never getting access to it. Or not getting early enough access to it. This looks to me like a partner who has a wire is a necessary factor. Can we count on getting access on an equal (or at least profitable) basis otherwise? The other danger is that once the technology is worked out, the large broadcasters will be able to buy it and take over the market for themselves. One hopes that some parts of the game are exclusively ours, that they will be forced to let us in on their game to play in ours. And that with early entry and experience a presence on the scene will be so established that the advantages of switching to, say, CBS to do their narrowcast will not be obvious to our customers. All of this looks like needing a lot of money. More than AXC has at this time for sure. So where is that going to come from? Sorry folks, but we will be better off if we think about the problems ahead of time: Are we going to be like the stockholders who first got in on Eurotunnel? A fantastic idea that went over budget by about quadruple? Again, it looks like a partner needs to be somewhere out there, preferably one with a wire.