Blast From the Past
The landscape is constantly shifting like grains of sands for fast-paced high tech and Web companies. But for new investors and Netizens alike arriving late to the party, the history often gets lost in the shuffle. To illustrate just how much wheeling and dealing has taken place in so little time, I plan to start throwing together a blast from the past segment on a semi-regular basis.
Half a decade ago this month:
Taxman H&R Block was busy pouring $70 million into its CompuServe sibling to better compete with up-and-coming rivals AOL and Prodigy. The upstart had plans the following month to axe its $5 per hour surcharge for online access in favor of a new flat $9.95 a month plan. Under the new plan, users cruising along on 9600 baud modems would enjoy a handsome five free hours and get charged $2.95 per hour thereafter. A year later, the fledgling subsidiary's revenues would actually surpass its parent. But not long after that, bruised and battered by more nimble competitors, CompuServe is sold a la carte in a billion dollar three-way stock deal to WorldCom and eight hundred pound rival AOL.
The DOJ was busy trying to make head or tails over Microsoft's
Time Inc. announced that it would begin charging users to access its
PATHFINDER Web service. That's the
same property that stands today as one of the Net's worst flops, with its
parent company pulling the plug on the hemorrhaging experiment just five
years after it began. Misery loves company, and Disney, the only other
media powerhouse on the Web, is doomed to suffer a similar fate. Sharper
entrepreneurs quickly recognized that eyeballs need to be monetized, and
good content needs good branding and distribution.
Netscape hits the new issues market running. With 3.5 million shares
slated to price at $13 apiece, demand forced the upstart browser to bump
the offering to 5 million shares priced at a gaudy $28 a pop. At the
opening bell, shares tripled before settling back to $50. Netscape's
chairman Jim Clark is worth half a billion dollars on paper, rubbing elbows
with America's upper crust. Creator Marc Andreessen also can afford his
fair share of double lattes with a net worth of roughly $50 million.
Following a post-secondary offering pullback, shares of Mecklermedia
skyrocketed 25% higher in a single day, settling in at its 52-week high of
$41 and change. Two months prior, in one of the first signs of investors'
insatiable appetite for Internet related issues, shares in the start-up
climbed 40% in just two days, boosted by its wildly popular Internet World
trade show and Internet related magazine publications. Three years later,
Penton Media would acquire the company for $274
million in cash. As part of the deal, CEO Alan Meckler would retain an 80%
stake in the Mecklermedia-owned internet.com, before taking the company
public in a $50 million IPO last year.
Below is a snapshot of a handful of Internet related companies and how they
were plugging along during pre-Internet irrational exuberance, in August of
1995. Many have been scooped up by bigger fish since, America Online
Company
Name Ticker Price High Low America Online AMER $54 $14 $14 Apple AAPL $45 $12 $33 AT&T T $52 $13 $47 FTP Software FTPS $24 $36 $15 General Electric GE $58 $61 $45 H&R Block HRB $37 $48 $33 IBM IBM $109 $112 $63 MCI MCIC $24 $26 $17 MecklerMedia MECK $41 $41 $4 Microsoft MSFT $94 $110 $52 Netcom NETC $34 $40 $17 NetManage NETM $18 $23 $7 News Corp. NWS $24 $25 $14 Performance Systems PSIX $19 $25 $12 Sears S $32 $35 $22 Spyglass SPYG $43 $45 $27 UUNET Technologies UUNT $40 $52 $22 move to bundle its new Microsoft Network online access
with its late-August launch of Windows 95. The software giant's plan called
for $4.95 a month for 3 hours, with additional hourly usage billed at $2.50
a pop. Estimates at that time had more than half of total online usage
clocked at just under five hours a month. New sign-ups were in for a big
surprise when Softie fell so far behind on access billing, charges didn't
start showing up on their credit card statements for nearly a year
following usage.
still traded on the Net-light Nasdaq, while the softer
side of Sears was known for something other than
tool-belts and riding mowers as a part owner of Prodigy.
