Murdoch Does Cyberspace

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

CyberWire Dispatch // Copyright (c) 1994 //


Jacking in from the "Bring on the Big Boys" Port:


Washington, DC --  AT&T and Rupert Murdoch's media empire are seeking to
form an alliance that would swap conduit for content, according to a report
in Interactive Week.


Think of it as the King Kong of Content meets the Godzilla of Distribution.
It's an alliance that would dwarf the failed Bell Atlantic-TCI "marriage of
the century."


The shadow of Murdoch's News Corp. media empire spares only Africa; every
other continent on the planet his News Corp. covers.  Yet his technological
stable, which includes the Fox TV network, British Sky Broadcasting and
Star TV serving the Asia-Pacific Rim, is missing a vital link:  A telephone
company.


Enter AT&T... maybe.


The News Corp.- AT&T talks are currently stalled, writes Wendy Goldman Rohm
in the premiere issue of Interactive Week, because Murdoch has stubbornly
refused to relinquish any of his 30% equity stake in News Corp.


But at this high stakes level, where the real nitty gritty future of
so-called information superhighway is being hammered out dollar sign by
dollar sign, there's always an answer.  In this case, Murdoch, in a recent
little publicized stock restructuring of News Corp., has freed up more
equity, which leaves his 30% in tact, but puts a deal with A&T within
striking distance.


Ma Bell, bless her, is keeping her mouth shut, refusing to comment. No
surprise there:  Mom has been one to kiss and tell.


However, News Corp. Executive Vp John Evans isn't exactly mum on the
subject of some kind of telco alliance (he declined to comment specifically
about any pending deal with AT&T).  "The phone companies have no creative
attributes. They have gentlemen whose trousers are slipping down their
backsides going up poles putting wires up," he told Interactive Week.  "As
common carriers they deliver messages around the world.  They have
bandwidth. And if you have the creative process and you have the bandwidth
that goes right to consumers, you have the possibility of a great deal of
common good," he said.


Great.  For those playing along without a scorecard, here's what's
happening: The folks that have stumbled through early interactive ventures
(AT&T), are now looking to put their core business -- long haul
distribution of telephone signals -- into the "creative" genius pool of the
company that foisted "The Simpsons" into the collective conscious of U.S.
if not the world.


If You Love It, Let It Go
=========================


As much as Murdoch seems to be obsessive about cornering his own little
digital chunk of Cyberspace, he also appears to have the foresight to "let
it go" as well.


Interactive Week reports that Murdoch is allowing a management buy out to
take place at News Electronic Data (NED).  The larger Murdoch organization
was kind of smothering poor NED, the paper says.


So what's NED up and do?  They invent MARILYN, an interactive Windows-based
"personal agent" for laptops, according to Interactive Week.  The paper
says that Marilyn's inventor, News Corp. Vp Evans, who also is NED's
president, refuses to all Marilyn a product, preferring the pronoun "she."


"We want to steal the screen from Bill Gates," Evans told Interactive Week.
Marilyn was designed by an Emmy-award winning animator, the paper says.
"When Marilyn collects online data for you (based on your own personal
profile) she will actually shed a tear if the news she brings you is bad,"
Evans told Interactive Week's Goldman-Rohm.


And when the Marilyn is busy running in the background, a golden retriever
named "Oliver" roams the screen, bearing in his mouth an envelope with
information, Interactive Week says.  Evans gave the paper an exclusive
preview of the working software.  He says it will ship early next year,
carrying a $50 price tag.


Beating A Dead Delphi
=====================


Murdoch also has big plans for Delphi, the nag of an online system he
bought last year.  Delphi, as we know it (and so few do), will basically
cease to exist sometime next year.


First, Delphi headquarters will move from its tony houndstooth digs in
Cambridge, Mass. to the heart of interactive grit:  New York City.


Delphi CEO Alan Baratz boasted to Interactive Week that by mid-1995 his
company would be way ahead of America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy by
implementing a "third generation multimedia interface featuring graphics,
audio, animation, video and hyper-linking of information."


"We're going to make dead meat out of CompuServe and America Online,"
Baratz told Interactive Week.


Okay... time for a reality check for Mr. Baratz.


Again, for those who left their scorecards at home, let's get you up to
date: Baratz was formerly with IBM.  While at IBM, Baratz was on watch as
the company built and deployed what it knew to be "crippled technology," in
the form of a router for the National Science Foundation's NSFNet,
according to a 1992 story in _Communications Daily_.


Under internal and external pressure, IBM released the router to be
deployed in 1992 in what was then touted as the U.S. flagship of high speed
network.  This crippled router, patched together on a computer platform
never intended to do such work, was said to work at 45 Mbps.  Indeed, the
National Science Foundation spent tens of millions of dollars on the
network upgrade.  Small problem:  IBM never tested the router and never
told anyone (outside a small circle of friends, which included the NSF)
that it didn't work any where near 45 Mbps.  In that "small circle of
friends," was Baratz.


To his credit, Baratz never hid from the fact that the router was less than
optimal. He owned up to the fact the router needed work, arguing that it
provided adequate performance for the NSFNet traffic load at the time.


So, when Baratz says Delphi will kick ass in the commercial online world,
well... take it for what it's worth.


Where does all this leave Murdoch?  Planning, planning, planning.
Interactive Week reports that TCI is expected to buy a minority stake in
News Corp.'s British Sky Broadcasting.  Also, an introductory meeting
between Godzilla-Also-Ran Bill Gates and Murdoch ended in a shouting match.
Gates wanted the scoop on some unannounced News Corp. product and when one
of Murdoch's henchmen refused to divulge the dirt, Gates was miffed.
Result: No deals.


Someone from the Murdoch entourage should have asked Gates for a gander at
his bank accounts (Swiss??) and stock portfolio.


Meeks out...


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Disclaimer:


CyberWire Dispatch publisher and editor, Brock Meeks, works by day as
Washington Bureau Chief for Interactive Week.  He also wrote the 1992 story
in Communications Daily about the crippled IBM router deployed on NSFNet.