The company will announce the executive shuffle today after the close of the market when it reports its fourth-quarter earnings, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people close to the situation.
The 43-year-old Jermoluk is expected to remain as the Excite@Home chairman, guiding the company's relationship with its owners, including AT&T, its largest shareholder.
The reported move comes on the heels of several high-profile chief executive shifts in the high-tech industry. Just last week, Bill Gates stepped back from his role as chief executive, giving Steve Ballmer that position at Microsoft. Also last week, America Online's Steve Case said he planned to hand over the title of chief executive to Time Warner's Gerald Levin once AOL's acquisition of Time Warner is completed. Ted Waitt, the founder of direct PC-seller Gateway, also announced similar plans last month.
It also comes as technology and Internet executives are changing the face of the chairman role in companies. The chairman post once was mainly an honorary title given to former top executives who wished to be less active in a company. Recently it has become a position chief executives take to be more involved in a company's strategy and less in its day-to-day operations.
Bell, who came to Excite@Home after his Web portal Excite merged with @Home Network, has been overseeing day-to-day operations. The Journal reported that he is likely to now concentrate on the company's recent decision to separate its media assets into a tracking stock later this year.
In recent months, Excite@Home has seen its stock drop--along with many other Internet companies--to near 52-week lows. Shares of Excite@Home climbed $1.47 or nearly 3.5 percent to $44.28 in early trading today--a far cry from its 52-week high of $99.
Many investors have questioned whether the company has stumbled in several key areas of its merger, especially in light of its recent plans to separate its media assets.
Jermoluk and Bell are likely to seek out more partnerships and potential merger or acquisition partners, according to the report. CNET said today it is acquiring mySimon, a Web-based comparison shopping service, for approximately $700 million in stock, and will change its corporate name to CNET Networks in an effort to reflect the company's expansion into new business areas.
CNET, which publishes News.com, will exchange 11.3 million shares of common stock, valued at roughly $700 million as of yesterday's closing price of $62.68, for mySimon. The transaction is expected to close by the end of this quarter.
CNET stock rose 2.0625 to 64.75 in early trading.
San Francisco-based CNET said the addition of mySimon, which provides a service that searches thousands of online stores to allow consumers to comparison shop for virtually any item, will allow it to expand its online shopping services to 250 product categories and more than 2,600 online merchants and advertisers.
"We have proven that we can build a profitable business out of linking buyers and sellers of technology products. In the future, the company that will be most important to e-commerce will be the one that enables the truly informed purchase decision in every category," CNET chief executive Halsey Minor said in a statement.
The name change reflects CNET's expansion and growth of additional brands, the company said. CNET.com will continue to focus on computers and technology, while mySimon will maintain its own brand, management team and staff, CNET said. Net marketing company Engage Technologies, majority owned by CMGI, today said it has agreed to buy CMGI's Adsmart and Flycast Communications in a stock deal worth about $2.4 billion.
With the acquisition, Engage, which provides ad targeting technology to Web sites, can combine its Internet ad-marketing products with Adsmart's Web ad technology for online advertisers and Flycast's online direct response technology, the companies said in a statement.
CMGI, headquartered in Andover, Mass., said Engage's acquisition is part of the Internet venture fund's larger strategy to create a single, integrated Internet marketing company.
The deal will provide Engage, also based in Andover, with a complete suite of Internet ad and marketing products to sell to its customers and serve the growing needs of online marketers, the company said.
CMGI has been busy adding to its collection of Web ad companies--it acquired Flycast, Adforce and Adsmart late last year in its push to compete aggressively against top Web advertising company DoubleClick. In December, CMGI also announced plans to acquire email marketer YesMail.com.
Under the terms of the deal, Engage said it will buy San Francisco-based Flycast and Andover-based Adsmart from CMGI for about 32 million shares. Based on Engage's closing stock price yesterday of $76 a share, the deal is valued at about $2.4 billion.
Engage said it will immediately oversee the operations of Adsmart and Flycast, both of which will be fully integrated with Engage. The companies said Paul Schaut will remain as president and CEO of Engage, while Flycast CEO George Garrick and Adsmart CEO John Federman will both join Schaut as presidents to oversee strategic operations for the combined company. CMGI CEO David Wetherell will continue to serve as chairman of the board for Engage.
The transaction is subject to certain regulatory conditions and the approval of Engage shareholders. The companies said they expect to close the deal in April or May of this year.
Intel has filed yet another complaint against chipmaker Via Technologies, this time asking a government agency to bar the Taiwanese company from importing products to the United States.
The giant chipmaker has filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission to bar Via from importing, among other products, its Apollo Pro chipsets, which work with Intel's Celeron and Pentium III processors, said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman.
Via is also slated to release its "Joshua" processor for low-end PCs in the near future. It is uncertain, but likely, that the request for a ban could be expanded to include these products as well.
Intel has filed a number of lawsuits against Via that center around a licensing deal that turned ugly. Via could not be reached for comment, but in the past the company has said they strongly dispute the allegations.
In late 1998, Intel signed a deal to license its "P6" bus to Via. The bus is the main conduit for data between the microprocessor and the rest of the computer. Via planned to make chipsets incorporating the bus that would compete with Intel chipsets.
The deal, a rare one for Intel, was seen by some analysts as a way for the company to deflect the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, then investigating the company, as well as an attempt to wean one of AMD's leading silicon partners away from dependence on the competition. Licensing pacts with other chipset makers soon followed.
By April, the deal was already in tatters. Via was promoting a chipset with a 133-MHz system bus, faster than Intel's 100-MHz system bus. The chipset was also compatible with 133-MHz SDRAM. Intel claimed that Via had gone beyond the terms of the licensing agreement on a number of occasions for unspecified reasons.
After negotiations failed, Intel filed a lawsuit in federal court. This was followed by lawsuits in England and Singapore. Along with Via, Intel is also suing PC makers FIC and Everex, which work extensively with Via. These companies also share common investors.
During this time, Via's chipset racked up important sales victories with companies such as IBM, HP and Compaq.
Although the outcome of any of these suits is uncertain, no love is lost between the two companies. While Intel has been filing suits, Via has been striking deals with S3 and others in an effort to insulate itself from liability. By contrast, no apparent problems have erupted on the other chipset deals.
"Intel sued Cyrix five times, and they never won. Intel--they just love lawsuits," said Via CEO Wen-Chi Chen in November.
"Because of the termination of the licensing agreement, none of their products are licensed for the P6 bus," said Mulloy.
Under ITC procedure, the group will have 30 days to consider the complaint, which was filed on Jan. 7. If the complaint is accepted, the organization will assign a judge to examine the issues in the request, said Mulloy.
Gemstar International Group, a Nasdaq 100 company that's planning to merge with TV Guide, has swept into the electronic book business by acquiring manufacturers NuvoMedia and SoftBook.
Gemstar this week paid an undisclosed amount of stock for both companies, which will operate as wholly owned subsidiaries and continue to produce their own e-book readers, according to NuvoMedia spokesman Marcus Colombano. The total number of shares issued amounts to less than 3 percent of Gemstar's shares, and won't affect its planned acquisition of TV Guide, Gemstar said in a statement.
NuvoMedia is the maker of the Rocket eBook, while former rival SoftBook produces the SoftBook Reader. With these acquisitions, Pasadena, Calif.-based Gemstar, a company that focuses on making technology friendly for consumers, has snapped up the two e-book manufacturers.
E-book readers are handheld devices made of hard plastic, able to hold about 4,000 pages of electronic text, or the rough equivalent of 10 books. Users download text or e-books onto the readers and carry them around much like they would paper books or magazines.
"Next to watching television, reading is America's most favorite pastime," Henry C. Yuen, Gemstar's chief executive officer, said in a written statement. "We believe that Gemstar, NuvoMedia, and SoftBook collectively will be in a good position to provide the best technology, broadest distribution, and the most consumer-friendly devices."
But some analysts have said consumers may never embrace e-books the way they do paper books because of the harsh lighting that computer screens give off.
Other companies such as Microsoft have developed technologies that compete with e-book readers. The Microsoft reader is a software application that enhances computer font resolution, easing the strain of reading computer text.
Josh Bond, a Weather Channel software technician in Atlanta, had pinned his hopes on two domain names he believed would someday fetch a small fortune.
In a day, those hopes were dashed when he learned the Web addresses he purchased with BulkRegister.com suddenly belonged to somebody else.
BulkRegister, owned by Canadian business Alabanza, today acknowledged the mistake and vowed it would never happen again. But the promise brings little comfort to Bond, who will likely loose out on the addresses for good.
"I bought the names, I got a confirmation, I was charged for them on my credit card," Bond said. "I don't know how this could have happened. I'm powerless. It's not a very good feeling being powerless."
Bond is among a growing number of consumers who, in the past several months, have wound up furious and frustrated while attempting to register Internet addresses. Having complained for years over the lack of competition in the domain registration business, many would-be Net entrepreneurs are discovering the hard way that competition and choices alone do not guarantee better service or greater accountability.
Many of the recent problems are minor and can be traced simply to the heavy demand for domain names sparked by speculators hoping to sell coveted names for a tidy profit. But domain name buyers like Bond have also found themselves vulnerable thanks to policies that seemingly protect domain name registrars at the expense of consumers.
According to attorney Connie Ellerbach, a partner in the Palo Alto, Calif., law firm Fenwick & West, domain registrars typically enforce a service agreement that essentially clears them of any liability. The service agreements are broad, and address situations such as access delays, access interruptions and processing of applications.
That leaves consumers with little recourse.
"Basically it says you agree that you have no cause of action against the registrars if they screw up," Ellerbach said. "Consumers have very little protection."
Getting a domain name is one of the first steps in establishing an online identity. It has been estimated that global domain name registrations will rise to 140 million names by the end of 2003 from about 11 million registered through the end of September 1999.
The business of registering domain names was opened to competition only nine months ago. Before, registrar Network Solutions operated as a monopoly under contract with the U.S. government giving it exclusive right to registered coveted ".com" addresses, along with ".net" and ".org."
Now there are 23 registrars accredited by the body that oversees the Internet's address system, called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Most registrars charge between $50 and $70 to register a name for two years, with a $35 renewal fee. BulkRegister customers get a significant discount, $10 per name, per year, if they register multiple names.
With more companies interested in getting into the domain name business, obtaining accreditation does not appear difficult. It takes, among other things, a $1,000 application fee, a solid business plan and a clean criminal history, according to the ICANN Web site.
BulkDomain.com is one of the latest registrars to go online. Since its launch last month, the company has registered 4,600 names, said Tony Keyes, who will take over as executive director in February.
"The success has outpaced our ability to provide good service," Keyes said. "We aren't certain what exactly transpired, but it won't happen again. If it turns out that our customers were the first to register the names, we'll go to bat for them."
While ICANN, the non-profit body that oversees the domain name system, has set up policies regarding trademark disputes, it stayed clear from any other type of consumer complaint.
"We are not a regulatory agency and have no statutory authority to intervene in a retail dispute," ICANN president Michael Roberts said. "The registrars have a contract with us and they have to observe good business practices. If we see a credible pattern of abuse by a registrar, then we will look into it and it could affect their accreditation."
In other words, consumers like Bond and Chris Stewart of Ontario, Canada, who also lost domain names with BulkRegister.com, have only a few options: complain to the Better Business Bureau or to ICANN. But no matter what, it is unlikely the domain names will be returned if already sold to somebody else.
"It's like buying a fine wine at the store," Roberts explained. "When you go up to the counter to pick it up you notice that another customer is walking out the door with the bottle and he's not about to give it back."
That's about how Steve Thompson of British Columbia sees it. Thompson bought the Fashionshop.com domain sometime Monday, the same name Bond thought he owned.
"We have plans for the name," Thompson said, without disclosing what those plans are. "I am secure in its ownership and I'm not going to give it up. Mr. Bond will have to take it up with BulkRegister. I'm not going to take any part of it."
It remains unclear what happened in the time Bond bought the domains and Thompson saw that they were available.
But BulkRegister's Keyes said speculators racing to pounce on catchy domain names that were expiring could have flooded the system, causing it to temporarily break down. Kids.com was one of the popular addresses up for sale last week.
Speculators--sometimes called cybersquatters--are entrepreneurs who seize on the opportunity to buy Web addresses that are easy to remember; it's like owning choice real estate on New York's Madison Avenue or Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive. The resell value is great.
Take Business.com, for example: It sold for a cool $7.5 million in November.
For others, however, domain names are much more than merchandise. Start-up companies spend hours building business models around a domain name and pour a lot of money in advertising to establish a presence on the Web.
But unlike the fine wine in Roberts' example, consumers never actually own the names; they merely rent them for a period of time, forcing owners to re-register. If they forget, they lose the name.
This week Network Solutions, Register.com and other registrars extended the expiration date for domains from two years to 10. The longer time frame should create more stability as Web operators won't have to worry about re-registering their online addresses every two years.
Even managers of large corporations have encountered problems with the short expiration date. During the Christmas holiday, for example, an apparent computer glitch showed that Microsoft had not paid it's $35 bill to re-register its Hotmail domain name. A Linux computer programmer ended up paying the fee and over the past weekend, he received a $500 thank you check from Microsoft.
Computer bugs have also frustrated consumers lately.
On occasion, the new universal software operated by Network Solutions that is used to reserve Net names goes on the blink, blocking transactions and preventing consumers from knowing whether a particular domain name is available.
The incident happened in late December, and again on Friday.
Then, earlier this month, registrars recalled hundreds of domains because they began or ended in hyphens--not allowed under domain name protocols.
"For the sake of the industry, I hope all these things will get ironed out," said Ross Rader of Tucow.com, a domain name registrar in Toronto, Canada. "It doesn't make the registrars look good as a whole."
SARATOGA, Calif.--One day after Transmeta came out of hiding, the company's first partner is set to follow.
Diamond Multimedia will announce a "Web pad" device using Transmeta's Crusoe chip today, people familiar with the company's plans said at an event here yesterday. Diamond, which makes such hardware as modems and video acceleration chips, recently began manufacturing a portable MP3 player and has previously flirted with tablet-sized computers.
Web pads, little bigger than their LCD screens, haven't yet hit the mainstream, despite being in development for several years. The easy-to-use devices are typically operated by pen, not keyboard and mouse, and connect to the Internet either wirelessly or through a wireless connection to a home networking station or PC. Industry heavyweights like Intel, National Semiconductor and Palm Computing have all experimented with the concept.
The move underlines Diamond's ongoing efforts to reshape its business. Although historically known for its analog modems and graphics cards, Diamond has been revamping its consumer strategy with its Rio MP3 player as the centerpiece. The device's popularity has encouraged Diamond to believe it can become the trusted name for digital gadgets.
In the future, Diamond wants to sell home music players and speakers that will pipe digital music into every room in the house, all connected by a Diamond home networking center.
Details on the Diamond Web tablet are sketchy, but the Santa Clara, Calif., company showed a copper-colored device on the stage at yesterday's unveiling of Transmeta's initial processors. Transmeta chief executive Dave Ditzel said in an interview that he expected the first products with the Transmeta chips to ship in the second quarter of this year.
The Diamond product will use Transmeta's lower-end 3120 chip, which costs between $65 and $89 and is in production. Web pads and other devices using the 3120 chip are expected to cost between $500 and $1,000, Transmeta representatives said yesterday.
Transmeta in fact demonstrated several Web Pads, including some equipped with handwriting recognition software and a radio transmitter that could be used to surf the Internet. The company has geared its technology specifically to be used for Internet access devices, and favors use of a stripped-down version of the Linux operating system.
Ditzel said that such Web pads have a battery life of about 4 or 5 hours of use, though that duration will improve when the hardware can take advantage of the advanced power management features of the Transmeta technology. In addition, the duration increases dramatically when the device is idle.
The 3120 chip consumes 0.15 watts of power when idle, Ditzel said. The 5400 chip consumes 0.8 watts.
About a dozen companies plan to use Transmeta chips, Ditzel said. NEC, a manufacturer of notebook computers, is evaluating the chip, said Leonard Tsai, chief technologist at NEC's PC Silicon Valley Center.
Stephen Shankland reported from Saratoga and Stephanie Miles from San Francisco. Alcatel is creating a $150 million fund to invest in U.S.-based start-ups, the latest effort by the French telecommunications equipment maker to tackle the North American market.
Executives say the new investment fund is intended to bring the company closer to developing technologies. Alcatel, whose U.S. revenues make up about 20 percent of its yearly revenue of about $14 billion, expects to invest in companies that make telecommunications or Internet-based equipment.
"The logic is for Alcatel to be closer and have faster access to new start-ups and their technologies," said Patrick Liot, president of Alcatel's Internetworking business, based in California.
Alcatel is one of several international firms hoping to compete against domestic leaders like Cisco Systems, Lucent Technologies, and Nortel Networks in supplying service providers and businesses the equipment they need to build faster networks.
The fund, called the Alcatel Venture Fund, will be headed by Xylan's former chief executive Steve Kim. The company hopes to invest its money in more than a dozen companies within 18 months, Liot said.
Over the past year, international firms such as Sweden's Ericsson and Germany's Siemens have also purchased U.S.-based networking companies as another means of entering the market. Alcatel, for example, has spent about $7 billion the last two years to acquire five U.S.-based networking companies, including Xylan, Packet Engines and Internet Devices, company executives said.
After two and a half years back at Apple, Steve Jobs is finally getting a bonus.
Newly named CEO Jobs isn't going to get a pay raise, but he will get 10 million shares of Apple stock and a Gulfstream V airplane "in recognition of his service to the company," Apple said in a statement.
The Cupertino, Calif., computer maker today announced a quarterly operating profit of $178 million, or $1.00 per share, easily surpassing the 89 cents per share anticipated by Wall Street analysts. The strong earnings report included a $90 million charge for executive compensation--offset by sales of its holdings in other companies--which turned out to be stock options and a jet for the man credited with spearheading Apple's turnaround.
Apple's board of directors voted unanimously to give the generous bonus based on the company's financial performance during Jobs' tenure, Apple said. The company has posted nine straight profitable quarters, but only this month did Jobs become Apple's official CEO on a full-time basis.
"Apple's market (capitalization) has risen from less than $2 billion to over $16 billion under Steve's leadership since his return to the company two and a half years ago," Apple board member Ed Woolard said in a statement.
"Steve has taken no compensation thus far, and we are therefore delighted to give him this airplane in appreciation of the great job he has done for our shareholders during this period," Woolard said.
The $90 million charge covers the purchase price of the plane plus all associated sales and income taxes that Jobs otherwise would have had to pay on the gift, Apple said. If the plane alone were counted as salary, Jobs' salary over the last two years and four months since being named as acting CEO would be about $38.5 million per year.
The 10 million shares Jobs received were granted a week ago at then-market price, according to Apple board member Jerry York.
The shares, which Apple said will be accounted for separately, would have an exercise price of about $870 million based on a strike price of $87.13, Apple's closing price last Wednesday.
Wireless technology provider Geoworks initiated a licensing program to collect royalties for a burgeoning Internet protocol, sending stock in the company more than 100 percent higher.
Shares in the Alameda, Calif.-based outfit gained $16.56, or more than 110 percent, to $31.56 at the 1 p.m. PST close of regular trading. Earlier, Geoworks announced it will begin seeking fees for wireless data server systems and software utilizing the increasingly popular Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which the company believes is based partly on its patented technology. Potential licensees could include Phone.com and Spyglass.
WAP underpins much of the "wireless Web" access services offered by companies like Sprint PCS or AT&T, enabling customers to browse a stripped-down version of the Web on their tiny mobile phone screens. At this point, connections speeds are slow and few sites are available--but companies like Phone.com that back the standard have already experienced strong market growth.
The licensing program was not unexpected, as Geoworks last May announced its belief that a portion of WAP is based on the company's intellectual property. But the collection of royalties could impact the deployment of wireless Internet services just as analysts and company executives begin bracing for their widespread adoption. The move is a first among members of the WAP Forum, an industry group that oversees the increasingly popular protocol.
Geoworks plans to implement two licensing programs by July 1 targeting content developers, software makers and wireless server manufacturers. The fees will be $20,000 each year for companies with more than $1 million in annual revenue, the company said. In addition, the company is seeking up to 10 percent of revenue per user from the likes of Spyglass and Phone.com.
Some analysts question whether royalty fees will affect pricing for consumers and business customers.
"I don't know if everybody else is going to want to get their little piece of the pie," said Probe Research senior wireless industry analyst Alan Mosher. "But if five or six vendors come forward (with royalties), it's just going to add to the cost of the phones."
Several other companies also have claimed that the WAP protocol, an amalgam of several different technologies, is based on "essential intellectual property rights" owned by the respective firms.
Geoworks chief executive Dave Grannan said the royalties will represent a powerful new source of revenue for his company. But Grannan said the company is being careful not to squelch WAP before it even takes hold in the market.
"To ask people to pay you a royalty for something is pretty serious," he said. "We walk that balance between wanting to get revenue for our product, but not wanting to do anything to stifle the growth of WAP."
Officials at the WAP Forum are concerned about anything that might delay the deployment of WAP services, but said licensing royalties are commonplace and should not necessarily cause alarm, particularly if the fees are fair.
"We would be discouraged if one of our vendors tried to take advantage of the process," said WAP Forum chairman Greg Williams. "I'm not saying at all that Geoworks has done that. I think what they've tried to do was set a price that is fair and reasonable, as anyone would.
"How it turns out, we'll just have to see over the next few weeks as these companies begin to negotiate licensing agreements," Williams said.
Other partners inside the wireless standards group say they're not sure how Geoworks' claim will affect them. Representatives from Phone.com and Nokia, two of the founders of the WAP standards process, said that their attorneys were still looking over the claims.
That a claim exists is not surprising, they added. The WAP standard has been built on top of technology from several different companies, and many of them have at least theoretical rights to claim some intellectual property ownership.
"By virtue of building a standard, each company contributes a small part of it," said Ben Linder, vice president of marketing for Phone.com, which itself has pieces of its own technology inside the standard. "Then you trade with each other to keep implementing the standard."
America Online today reported quarterly earnings that edged Wall Street expectations, helped in part by a strong showing in advertising and e-commerce revenues.
The online giant reported a net income of $224 million, or 9 cents per share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31. That compares with income of $86 million, or 4 cents per share, for the same period a year ago.
Analysts expected AOL to earn 8 cents a share, according to First Call consensus estimates. Wall Street "whisper" numbers predicted AOL would beat expectations by 1 cent or 2 cents per share.
Analysts reacted favorably to the earnings report, noting that AOL has maintained its revenue and market lead over its competitors in both the access and content side.
"The bright point is that there's no point to question," said Brian Oakes, an equity analyst at Lehman Brothers. "You look through the earnings report, you don't find any problems."
Revenues for the final three months of 1999 reached $1.6 billion, up 41 percent from the same period a year ago.
Advertising and commerce revenue accounted for $437 million of the total, a 79 percent increase from a year ago. Analysts said this growth gives a good indication that AOL is relying less on access fees as the cornerstone of its revenue model.
In addition, time spent on AOL's proprietary service increased to over one hour a day on average. Time spent on the service may be a primary factor for the continued rise in advertising and commerce revenues, said Jordan Rohan, an equity analyst at Wit Capital.
"It ties very accurately into the company's ability to keep people on their site longer and to extract more revenue in the form of advertising and e-commerce," Rohan said. "This metric is something that investors are increasingly focused on and this is where AOL really excels."
AOL chief executive Steve Case also touted time spent on the company's properties as a major area for growth. Now that AOL is planning to acquire media and entertainment giant Time Warner in a deal worth about $160 billion, the combined company will own many forms of media that consumers use on a daily basis.
"We are trying to compete on a 24-hour, daily basis, and not on a one-hour-a-day business," Case said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts.
Nevertheless, a significant portion of today's earnings call was spent addressing issues surrounding the planned merger with Time Warner. When and if the deal closes later this year, the combined companies will own online access, cable programming and services, as well as a slew of content ranging from films to television shows and music.
But many questions still remain--most regarding the integration of the two companies and their accompanying management teams. Already, the companies have formed an "integration team" including AOL co-chairman Ken Novack, AOL president Bob Pittman and Time Warner Digital Media chairman Rich Bressler.
"I think that both companies have been through enough mergers and acquisitions that I give them a high level of confidence that they'll pull this off," said Paul Noglows, an equity analyst at Chase H&Q. "I think you've got a lot of seasoned pros who know how to put companies together."
However, Noglows, along with other analysts, did express concern over certain issues regarding AOL's use of Time Warner's content. He warned that if AOL restricted its service to only Time Warner-owned content, the effects could backfire on the company.
"I think they understand that they need to keep platforms as open to as broad a customer base as possible," Noglows added. "The proof will really be when these contracts start expiring--do they go with a Time Warner brand or with another brand?"
AOL's Case maintained a stance of openness over the issue of content offered and eventually in terms of access to the combined company's broadband pipes. But Case added that AOL would take a closer look at whether Time Warner properties would make more sense when current content contracts expire.
"We are open to working with a variety of companies," Case said during the conference call. "Ultimately, consumers do want choices and we will provide choices."
Former Netscape chief executive Jim Barksdale and his wife Sally have donated a record $100 million for a new children's reading institute at the University of Mississippi, the school is expected to announce tomorrow.
The institute will be housed at the university, the Barksdales' alma mater, but will be a state-wide program, sources said.
"Jim has been very interested in education," the source said, noting that his daughter is a school teacher. "His feeling is that literacy is the cornerstone of the rest of your education. With it, children will be able to lead productive lives."
The donation eclipses the couple's $5.4 million gift to the university in 1996 to establish the McDonnell-Barksdale Honors College.
At the time, Barksdale told university officials that his dream was for the "University of Mississippi to offer the richest educational experience available...I hope its graduates will be a positive force that will impact Mississippi's educational, economic and cultural life as they invest, create and produce in the context of their native state."
That year, Barksdale was inducted to the Ole Miss Alumni Hall of Fame, and a year later, in 1997, he participated as a panelist for an episode of "Firing Line" that was filmed at the university, according to an article published in today's college paper.
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