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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: VidiVici who wrote (41191)	5/17/1999 12:43:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

Murdoch vs Gates Mail on Sunday industrywatch.com TWO of the world's most powerful tycoons are about to go into battle. Bill Gates, the world's richest man and head of software giant [ Microsoft ] , is squaring up to media baron Rupert Murdoch in a multibillion pound fight to dominate the flow of information into 21st Century homes. Thanks to the arrival of digital transmission, homeowners will no longer regard phones, televisions and computers as separate items doing different jobs. Digital information will flow in through a single black box that will allow consumers to watch TV, talk to friends anywhere in the world, order videos and shop over the Internet, or complete banking transactions. The digital signals can arrive by satellite, by cable, or even through a conventional TV aerial. Murdoch is determined to be the dominant player in this hugely lucrative and influential new industry, using his BSkyB digital satellite TV network, launched last year. But Gates has moved in to challenge that lifetime ambition, using cable instead of satellite - and has thrown the media and telecommunications worlds into a frenzy. The first shot in what threatens to become a global battle was fired last month when Gates tried to poach Murdoch's top TV executive, Mark Booth. As head of BSkyB and the leading force behind the company's move into digital television, Booth is probably the world's leading authority on the new digital TV industry. Gates offered Booth a package worth an incredible $100 million (GBP 61 million) to head a new con- sumer division at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle, on America's northwest coast. The division is responsible for getting the Internet and Microsoft's interactive television services into the home. The move fired panic into the heart of Murdoch, who realised that more was at stake than the loss of a key executive. He came up with an offer that has made Booth head of a new international investment vehicle, e*partners, set up to buy stakes in Internet and digital TV companies. The Booth episode gave Murdoch a valuable insight into what Gates was up to. Gates had already bought 5% of [ NTL ] , a UK cable company, built stakes in other US cable companies, bought 2.5% of TV Cabo, the cable arm of [ Portugal Telecom ] , and invested in Dutch cable network UPC. This realisation provoked Mur-doch into a surprising and aggressive reaction last week, when BSkyB announced a GBP 325 million giveaway. From next month customers will no longer have to pay GBP 200 for the set-top boxes needed for Sky's digital service. They will also be offered big reductions on phone calls in a package that aims to mimic what the cable companies intend to offer. It is a redrawing of the battle lines. Only four months ago BSkyB saw its major competitor as ONdigital, created by Carlton and Granada. The new moves threaten to shove ONdigital out of the picture. A senior television industry source said: 'Murdoch has the fight of his life on his hands. It's still an open game, but backs are against the wall.' Only 24 hours after Murdoch announced the set-top giveaway, Microsoft said it was acquiring a 29.9% stake in cable TV company [ Telewest Communications ] . Tele-west, NTL and Cable & Wireless Communications will start offering digital television services in July. Gates has an interest in Telewest and NTL, and there is a high possibility that the three may merge. Gates's deep pockets are of particular concern to Murdoch. Andrew Roshill, an analyst at investment banker SBC Warburg Dillon Reed in New York, said: 'Microsoft has well over $20 billion to spend and the money keeps flowing in.' Despite satellite's current dominance, the technology behind cable is more powerful and flexible. Murdoch is rattled by these implications, and Gates has an uncanny knack of predicting the future. And if the richest man in the world is backing cable, the odds must be against satellite. William Kay Page 4 (Copyright 1999)

To: VidiVici who wrote (41191)	5/17/1999 12:49:00 PM
From: Black-Scholes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

I don't know. But the probability of it happening has increased, I think, as CUBE wraps up the ENTIRE European STB market - apparently. I think any viable STB vision has to have the European and North American STB's talking to each other. No? I think CUBE/Divicom has quietly made an "open cable" solution in North America a given.