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Strategies & Market Trends : The Thread Formerly Known as No Rest For The Wicked -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MARK C. who wrote (23198)	4/2/1999 9:55:00 PM
From: Waldeen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90042

Mark, thanks for the IDTC link, think the following clip is important. Personally, it would not surprise me to see further interaction between AOL and IDTC, so I'm already in... excerpt lifted from, C Y B E R S T O C K Net2Phone - A Budding Broadband Star? April 2, 1999 By Matthew W. Ragas, Editor ragingbull.com excerpt follows: POSSIBLE NET2PHONE INVESTORS One question remains. Who are the two investors with whom IDT has executed a term sheet for an investment in Net2Phone? After piecing together various bits of information, I believe the two investors will turn out to be online giant AOL and frequent Internet investor Softbank. This is pure speculation on my part, but here is the reasoning. Why would Netscape, a division of AOL, give such a sweetheart distribution deal to Net2Phone without taking an equity stake in the company? Getting a piece of the action from their online partners has always been in AOL's blood. Softbank is a likely candidate because in December of 1998, IDT announced that it was in discussions with a "major media conglomerate with extensive holdings in leading Internet companies." With ownership in Ziff Davis and investments in over 60 Internet companies (including Yahoo!, GeoCities, and E*TRADE) Softbank could definitely be our silent benefactor. To add more grist to the rumor mill, a Briefing.com article re-capping the mid-January DLJ Internet conference noted that a Softbank partner sitting on a venture capital panel quipped that his company had "invested in an Internet phone company who will shortly be doing a major IPO." Could it be Net2Phone? (Remember that Softbank portfolio companies GeoCities and Yahoo! already have distribution deals with Net2Phone.)