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With last week's $60 billion acquisition of cable company MediaOne and a $5 billion partnership with Microsoft, AT&T and chairman C. Michael Armstrong have completed the first stages of a plan to remake the famously ponderous long-distance telephone company into a new-economy supernova. And if it seems hard to imagine that the cable bringing you Matlock reruns and Stone Cold Steve Austin will be your sole electronic connection with the outside world, get used...
Armstrong's bold stroke 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...
...addition to the $1.5 billion breakup fee Comcast collected to walk away from the deal. (Comcast's strengthened position may come in handy later as Exhibit A when AT&T has to prove to regulators that it has not rebuilt the old Ma Bell monopoly.) AT&T sold to Microsoft--a company whose Internet strategy is looking increasingly piecemeal--$5 billion of preferred stock and an opportunity to supply some of the operating systems and software for the set-top boxes and servers that AT&T will have to deploy to support its vast new digital domain...
...high-speed capability, according to experts, will encourage the migration of the computer into the common areas of the household. That means more sites visited, banners clicked and e-commerce transacted--and AT&T (as well as Microsoft) wants a piece of all that fast-growing action. The company already has a wide array of Internet products and e-commerce applications ready to deploy over the nascent network. Gradually, through television advertisements, mailings and those annoying phone calls, AT&T's AtHome could become an online brand to rival AOL. "They are going to hit you on ESPN...
...stop there. At the Smithsonian Air and Space museum in Washington D.C., Star Wars fans can view a photo gallery of "mythic images" from the series. Thousands of Internet sites have been established which offer everything from photos to sound bites to detailed summaries of characters and plotlines. Microsoft's home Web page, the first thing every single Internet Explorer user sees when logging on, has even included a new "Star Wars Guide," placed strategically at the top of the page next to links for stock quotes and maps. Visitors can see how much time is left until the movie...