DIGITAL DIVIDE
Internet Access Beyond Reach Of Most In Vietnam (USA)
ANTITRUST
U.S. Hoping 2 Microsoft Monopolies Are Gentler Than One(NYT)
CABLE
FCC Will Approve AT&T Acquisition Of MediaOne if Some Assets Are
Sold (WSJ)
Cablevision Moves to Add to Its New York Customers (NYT)
INTERNET
E-Business Service Providers Help Smaller Firms Open Internet
Stores (WSJ)
WIRELESS
Britain's Happy Problem: How to Spend $30 Billion Cell Phone
Windfall (WP)
Nextel Enters Wireless Net (WP)
Italy Expected to Make Huge Increase In Wireless License Costs
Before Sale (WSJ)
DIGITAL DIVIDE
INTERNET ACCESS BEYOND REACH OF MOST IN VIETNAM
Issue: Digital Divide
Phuong Le, 25, a resident of Ho Chi Minh City is teaching herself how to
build Web sites at night. But, Phuong's job as a labor practices manager for
Nike places her among a select few in Viet Nam - 40,000 - who have the
income for Internet access. The cost of Internet access surpasses the income
of most of Viet Nam's 78 million residents, whose average per capita yearly
income is $360. "The Internet is not in Vietnam," says Brian Quinn of the
Harvard Institute for International Development, a partner in the Fulbright
Economics Teaching Program at Vietnam National University. Viet Nam's
telecommunications sector is state controlled. Currently, the infrastructure
pipes needed to carry information do not exist in the country. "Vietnam is
rapidly losing any competitive advantage to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia and China, who are embracing information technologies to market
their products to a worldwide export marketplace," says Radne Bryant, IBM's
Vietnam general manager.
[SOURCE: USA TODAY (3B), AUTHOR: Julie Schmit]
(http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000425/2194974s.htm)
ANTITRUST
U.S. HOPING 2 MICROSOFT MONOPOLIES ARE GENTLER THAN ONE
Issue: Antitrust
A tentative proposal from the Justice Department that is expected to be
submitted to a federal judge later this week, highlights the government's
belief that the software giant would create a more open, competitive
environment if broken into two separate companies. The proposal would force
the Microsoft Corporation to break off its industry-standard Windows
operating system into one company, and its Office applications software
business and most other operations into a second company. David Yoffie, a
professor at Harvard Business School, explained: "What the government seems
to be trying to do is change the incentives for both monopoly products,
Windows and Office. If they are split up, you would have more of a duopoly
structure with the same kind of tension that exists between Microsoft and
Intel, which is healthy." The proposed split-up would address the frequent
complaints from other software companies that Microsoft gives its own
applications programmers preferred access to the inner workings of Windows
technology.
[SOURCE: New York Times (B1), AUTHOR: Steve Lohr]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/biztech/articles/25split.html)
See Also:
WHITE HOUSE WILL BE BRIEFED ON PLAN TO BREAK UP MICROSOFT
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: Bob Davis and Ted Bridis]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB956616890740914396.htm)
CABLE
FCC WILL APPROVE AT&T ACQUISITION OF MEDIAONE IF SOME ASSETS ARE SOLD
Issue: Merger
A Federal Communications Commission staff report recommends approving AT&T
Corp.'s acquisition of cable-TV concern MediaOne Inc. on the conditions that
it shed its programming units -- Liberty Media and Rainbow Media Sports
Holdings Inc. -- or sell MediaOne's 25.5% stake in Time Warner
Entertainment. These conditions are a result of FCC staff members concerns
that the MediaOne deal would give AT&T too much control over the cable and
satellite-television markets. AT&T had bought a number of cable companies,
betting that cable lines will be a key conduit for high-speed Internet
access and local phone service, and has sought to convince regulators that
it won't control too much of the market after the MediaOne deal closes. At
minimum, AT&T had hoped to be able to choose which assets to sell. The FCC
last year ruled that one company may serve no more than 30% of all U.S.
cable and satellite-TV households. According to the FCC, AT&T and MediaOne
together would command a 41% share of U.S. households. AT&T has argued that
neither Time Warner Entertainment nor Liberty Media should be counted toward
its share of the market, because it doesn't manage or control them.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: Kathy Chen]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB956617091216628788.htm)
CABLEVISION MOVES TO ADD TO ITS NEW YORK CUSTOMERS
Issue: Cable
Cablevision Systems Corporation has obtained an additional 125,500 customers
in the New York metropolitan region in a $1.1 billion deal that will make it
the nation's largest local cable provide. In recent months, the company has
begun telephone service over cable lines and expanded its high-speed
Internet service over cable modems. In this latest deal, the company agreed
to trade its 357,000 Boston area subscribers to Media One, which is to be
acquired by AT&T, for 125,500 subscribers in the northern suburbs of New
York City, say officials. This deal along with others planed deals would
give Cablevision 2.9 million customers in its remaining regional cluster,
which includes New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. "The New York strategy
has to do with building a digital platform, and that digital platform will
provide a full array of telecommunications, and that is everything from
phone to Internet to video," James L. Dolan, president of Cablevision.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A23), AUTHOR: Jayson Blair]
(http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-cablevision.html
)
E-COMMERCE
E-BUSINESS SERVICE PROVIDERS HELP SMALLER FIRMS OPEN INTERNET STORES
Issue: E-Commerce
There is a growing competition between specialized Web sites that help
smaller companies get online. The sites, called e-business service
providers, which began appearing about two years ago, host Web pages and
provide e-commerce tools and related services -- often without charge.
E-commerce specialists say small companies usually have little to lose from
taking up the offers. "It's kind of a trial-and-error process, and why spend
money if you don't have to?" says Kneko Burney, an e-commerce specialist at
Reed Elsevier's Cahners In-Stat unit in Scottsdale, Ariz. s. Burney says
nine of the 19 e-business providers that she tracks offer free service,
while hiring Web-design consultants can easily cost a firm more than
$10,000.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (Interactive), AUTHOR: Jeffrey A. Tannenbaum]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB956617207921473448.htm)
WIRELESS
NEXTEL ENTERS WIRELESS NET
Issue: Wireless
Nextel, the mobile phone company that is best known for combining two-way
radios with cell phones, is going to begin offering data services, including
Internet access on its phones. While the clamor over the wireless Internet
is not exactly new, it has generally been focused on consumers, rather than
businesses. Nextel, whose bread and butter is business, is on the leading
edge of what is going to be a very big market. Both Sprint and Bell Atlantic
(now Verizon), are investigating the best ways to get into the business
market, and AT&T plans to offer a consumer-oriented wireless Internet
service in the next few months. While wireless companies are hopeful about
the business market, suggesting that linking workers in the field with
office databases will be a real boon to businesses everywhere, they are also
aware of the hurdles they will have to go over to sell their new products,
for instance, security . "Many [information technology] executives have not
been willing to provide the ability for their employees to have access
through firewalls," said Howard Waterman, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless.
"As that concern eases, I think you'll see many more business customers
having that access."
[SOURCE: Washington Post (E3), AUTHOR: Peter S. Goodman]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6694-2000Apr24.html)
BRITAIN'S HAPPY PROBLEM: HOW TO SPEND $30 BILLION CELL PHONE WINDFALL
Issue: Wireless
The British government is auctioning off the rights to spectrum set aside
for the next generation of cell phones. Companies eager to be one of the
five to win that very lucrative right have sent the bidding up to an
astounding $30 billion. Now the question facing Tony Blair's government is
what to do with the money. The ideas, as one can imagine, are rather varied.
Some believe that the money should simply be used to pay off the country's
staggering debt. Others say that it should be returned to British subjects
in the form of a tax cut (it would be a nice one-taxes could be cut by 10
percent without affecting the treasury). Another idea is to take the money
and put it into repairing the country's decaying infrastructure, which is so
out of date and beleaguered that there is some talk of charging a toll on
any car entering a city.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A19), AUTHOR: T. R. Reid]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8343-2000Apr24.html)
ITALY EXPECTED TO MAKE HUGE INCREASE IN WIRELESS LICENSE COSTS BEFORE SALE
Issue: Wireless
Impressed by Britain's runaway auction for wireless licenses, Italy's Prime
Minister-designate Giuliano Amato is expected to raise the price of the five
Italian licenses to be awarded this summer to an estimated $14.06 billion
from the $1.13 billion currently planned. The windfall from these licenses,
which allow wireless Web surfing, would go to fund economic incentives and
education projects designed to spur Italy's technological advancement,
without tapping voters' pockets. Officials at Italian mobile-phone companies
have responded that raising the license fees would hurt rather than spur
Italy's technological advancement, by diverting their money away from
infrastructure investments and thereby producing a low-quality network as a
result.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal Interactive, AUTHOR: Yaroslav Trofimov]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB95660752577736534.htm)
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