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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bruce Cullen who wrote (4379)	6/1/1999 1:01:00 PM
From: Skip Jack	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 13157

Liberty Media CEO, Malone, Hints AT&T Break with Company With so much speculation in the air surrounding anti-trust regulatory opinion on Microsoft, America Online, and of course, AT&T, John Malone, CEO at Liberty Media, a company owned by AT&T, suggested last week Liberty and AT&T may part the ways. This comment occurred during Liberty Media's annual meeting with Wall Street investors - Malone suggesting the two companies divergent goals were, perhaps, creating painful stretchmarks which may lead to separation of a kind. Ultimately, things will remain the same for now, he said. Liberty hopes to be, primarily, a content services developer and acquire other business to enhance that strategy, while AT&T is clearly building infrastructure. Liberty, in the next year, will begin announcing partnerships with technology and service providers and making investements in many new start ups that feel they have a solution. Two larger deals include the TV Games Networks (interactive horse racing in Kentucky), and interactive TV Guide (a joint venture with Murdoch's News Corp).

To: Bruce Cullen who wrote (4379)	6/1/1999 2:40:00 PM
From: Mike Fredericks	Respond to of 13157

Bruce- I feel it's possible to expect one stop shopping/purchasing via wireless in the not so distant future, thus the interest... although it may be my own opinion... I feel it has/is the potential for wireless sytems linked into order processing equiptment. (IATV) is a telecom equipt. type of company... there are many possibilities even the best of us can't grasp as of yet. A couple of comments I have about this paragraph- 1) Wireless networks in general are possible, but far from ideal, for reasons I mentioned previously. Air is very inefficient at carrying network traffic. High bandwidth through the air requires a high frequency range. Only one person can use a given frequency at a time in a given area. Thus, there's not enough bandwidth to go around to make wireless networks mainstream for broadband-type applications. What can be done via wireless is broadcasting (where multiple people receive the same content.) DirecPC is trying internet access via satellite, but only the downlink is via satellite... I'm not exactly how this service works technically, whether they somehow assign each user their own frequency or whether each network packet comes tagged with the recipient and the hardware discards packets that are not meant for that user... I don't know. Still, fiber and coax are better for networks because while you can only use a given frequency once per wire, you can use the same frequency on multiple wires. In my opinion, wireless networks are going to find their niche in places where wires are not available... such as mobile computing and military applications. The cost per bandwidth just won't support wireless as an alternative to traditional wire-based internet access for the home or business. 2) I don't see IATV as a generic telecommunications equipment company. They don't manufacture any hardware. They're just a software shop. I believe I've seen mentioned (although I don't have a cite) that they also will sell consulting type services to people who want to IATV-enable their broadcast content. I think IATV is strictly an entertainment company, although I will certainly grant you that entertainment is not in any way limited to the 1980's version of "television." The Horse Racing channel, Chat rooms on tv, Ordering products via tv, real-time user voting of who won the Gore/Bush presidential debates... lots of stuff. IATV is a small company. They are not an IBM or an AT&T who can pour lots of resources into lots of different things. I believe it is in IATV's best interests to focus exclusively on content that is delivered via a television set (with some of the data coming via the internet). This alone will be a HUGE business, at least for the next 10 years or so until the next great thing comes along. -Mike