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To: Valueman who wrote (3225)	3/1/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

Microsoft's Gates Sees Fast Internet Access Globally totaltele.com By Laura Raun at Bloomberg News 01 March 1999 Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates predicted that high-speed Internet access using satellites will be available around the globe in four years as systems such as Teledesic LLC begin operating. Teledesic, founded by Gates and cell-phone pioneer Craig McCaw, is an "Internet-in-the-Sky" project designed to provide fast Internet access around the world. It will allow services such as electronic shopping and video conferencing to be offered over a network of 288 low-orbiting satellites. Microsoft, the No. 1 software maker, needs faster Internet access to sell more software and services for computer networking, and for its stepped-up electronic commerce efforts. The company offers travel bookings and other services on its MSN Network of Web sites. This week, it opened an online shop for its software and hardware. "Teledesic will change the equation because as satellites pass over every part of the globe they can offer inexpensive service to the developing world," Gates said during a question- and-answer session following a speech to the Washington Council on International Trade in Seattle. "That's likely to happen as those systems come in place in the next four years," Gates said. Teledesic has said it expects to start service by late 2003 or early 2004. The project is expected to cost $10 billion, though some analysts estimate it could cost as much as $15 billion. Gates also called on Congress to grant the president fast- track authority to negotiate world trade agreements without waiting for congressional approval. "There is tremendous potential for the growth of online commerce worldwide. But we won't realize the full potential of that growth unless new trade agreements eliminate the prospect of tariffs on electronic transfers and guarantee free-market access for electronic-commerce providers," Gates said in prepared remarks. "The significance of these issues makes it important that the president have fast-track negotiating authority." Gates is co-host with Boeing Chairman Phil Condit of the World Trade Organization annual meeting to be held in Seattle later this year.

To: Valueman who wrote (3225)	3/2/1999 5:05:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

INTERVIEW-Ukraine ex-missile makers aim for stars By Christina Ling DNIPROPETROVSK, Ukraine, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Ukraine's former nuclear missile makers are battling the odds to prove themselves in the tough commercial space launch market, but say they still have plenty of fight left in them. "The competition is very tough, and of course no one is hanging around just waiting for us and no one wants us to appear on the market," Yuri Alexeyev, head of the rocket builder Yuzhmash, told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "So we have to prove with our own work that we know how to do this well." Yuzhmash and sister company Yuzhnoye, the designer of most Soviet military missiles, lie on the edge of this industrial centre in eastern Ukraine. They have had to adapt quickly to the collapse of their raison d'etre with end of the Cold War. Tucked into wooded corners of the high-security complex, a few workshops are now using U.S. funding to dismantle the missiles they developed years ago. Some workshops have been converted to produce heavy consumer goods, which Alexeyev said earned about 45 percent of revenues. Among other new projects, he said Yuzhmash was also working with U.S. firm CaseCSE.N on developing a heavy tractor. [To bury some G* sats. Sorry, a little bitter humor...] Yuzhnoye design bureau chief Stanislav Konyukhov said his firm had developed a combine harvester and trolleybus. But the firms' biggest dreams and stakes ride on finding a niche in the global commercial rocket launch market, where returns are for now slim. "On the one hand...all the specialists working on rocket construction need to stay and keep working. But what can we pay them with?" Konyukhov said. "Right now we are only using things that we developed previously. But all that is very far from fully utilising the full capacity of Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash." The first attempt to launch 12 satellites worth $15 million each for the Globalstar telecommunications consortiumGSTRF.O in Yuzhnoye's Zenit-2 rocket, a converted Soviet missile, ended in failure when it crashed seconds after blastoff. "That brought big financial losses for both (consortium leader) LoralLOR.N and Globalstar but for ourselves it was also a big setback for morale -- we lost a little bit of face," Alexeyev said. "Now we need to brush ourselves off and show what we can do." Money problems also complicate matters. The launch of Russia's Okean satellite, which Globalstar is now monitoring closely, has several times been delayed for lack of funds. But Konyukhov said the money had been found and the launch would take place in May. The first demonstration launch of a former nuclear missile converted jointly by Ukraine and Russia into a new "Dnipro" rocket would take place in April. "It won't bring us big profits but it will open the possibility for us to use the rocket for commercial purposes," he said, adding the rocket would carry a British-made satellite. The companies are also eyeing cooperation with Brazil, which has a launch site on the equator, although they said talks were only in the initial stages. Ukraine lacks a launch site and uses the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan which is rented by Russia. The $2 billion Sea Launch project, which Yuzhnoye is participating in with BoeingBA.N, Norway's KvaernerKVIOb.OL and Russia's Energiya rocket maker, will launch payloads from a converted oil rig at sea. A recent decree by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma aims to boost the sector by uniting all the companies working on space projects into one and granting tax breaks and special credits. "We need to concentrate our resources. There are so many factories which are all doing something when it should be done in one place. Others could be converted to a different use," Alexeyev said. "Our prices are competitive with all of you -- with the Americans, the French, even the Chinese and Russians. The market likes a reliable, good, cheap product and we have to prove that we have that product." REUTERS Rtr 09:46 02-28-99 Copyright 1999, Reuters News Service Login / Home / Portfolio Demo / Trading Demo / Market Monitor Quotes & News / Research & Ideas / Customer Service / Site Map © 1998 DLJdirect Inc. All Rights Reserved. Member SIPC and NASD. Trademarks of DLJ Long Term Investment Corporation. Copyright © 1996 Reuters Limited.