Word: comcasts
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...posed such a change in the competitive landscape that various players along the communications-company continuum spent a few desperate days last week searching for ways to keep MediaOne out of AT&T's hands. Internet power America Online, software supremo Microsoft, telecom giant MCI Worldcom and cable's Comcast (which made the initial $48 billion bid for MediaOne that AT&T overwhelmed) all huddled at various times because each had something to lose. AOL, for instance, could find its access to cable-modem customers blocked and its booming online-content business threatened...
...early yet, but cable is the one-stop-shopping future, and the No.1 cable company is already the No. 1 phone company. When it also has deals with the No. 1 software company and the Nos. 2 and 3 cable companies (Time Warner, behemoth parent of TIME Daily, and Comcast), and just about everybody else except the Baby Bells, its sounds great for AT&T. But maybe not so great for competition...
...YORK: AT&T got the bride -- but it's letting Comcast share the dowry. In a string of deals announced late Tuesday, the former Ma Bell became the nation's No. 1 cable company when it finally won MediaOne's hand. Comcast, for stepping aside, gets to buy 2 million of AT&T's cable subscribers to further solidify its current position as a regional powerhouse and national No. 3. Not to mention $1.5 billion in deal-breaker fees from MediaOne (AT&T will foot that bill). So Comcast is happy. MediaOne's stockholders are definitely happy. And the groom...
...cash: market share, via a commitment from AT&T to use Windows software in every set-top Internet/phone/cable box that AT&T will be running wires into. Is the new Ma Cable moving a little too fast? Not if the deal was Microsoft's price for staying out of Comcast's corner. Plus, a $5 billion check -- especially with Bill Gates's name on it -- helps dispel investor fears that AT&T's headlong rush into cable is burying the company in debt. "AT&T has made a very smart move," says Baumohl. "They get a little cash, plus they...
Although already loaded with debt from its acquisition last year of the TCI cable system, AT&T was able to outbid Comcast largely because it can make more off MediaOne's cable customers, using the cable lines to sell phone service and, in conjunction with At Home, high-speed Internet access. That last piece apparently scares both AOL and Microsoft. And so the biggest software company and the biggest online service emerge to contest the biggest phone carrier. MORE...