I missed out on the conga line of carriers, vendors and Digerati who stole the show last week in New Orleans. It’s a wireless data world after all. The Net is revolutionizing the wireless industry. It’s revolutionizing everything, everywhere.
Just last week, a Hong Kong Internet startup-Tom.com-caused traffic jams as prospective investors rushed to banks to buy shares, AP reported. Those who didn’t buy stock got rich anyway, becoming instant billionaires because of a Leap Year-related software glitch at the bank.
Those who fought gridlock to buy Tom.com shares last Wednesday were rewarded for their perseverance. Tom.com shares quadrupled on the Hong Kong market to 7.75 Hong Kong dollars (99 U.S. cents) from the IPO asking price of 1.78 Hong Kong dollars (23 U.S. cents).
As night fell, Li Ka-shing, a Hong Kong billionaire who runs the Internet startup, was flashing “Tom.com” atop a high-rise he owns. If you looked hard enough, you might have seen the same thing flashing above 1250 Connecticut Ave., here in the nation’s capital.
Turns out, Richard Li, the 33-year-old son of Li Ka-Shing and a Stanford University grad, used Tom.com stock to outbid competitor Singapore Telecommunications for Cable & Wireless HKT (which has 65 percent of Hong Kong’s mobile phone subscribers). Tom.com, mind you, has no income and no subscribers. I just love this New Economy.
I understand there was much the same energy and excitement at the wireless show in Bayou Country, where AOL struck deals with Sprint PCS and Nokia Corp. Elsewhere, Motorola Inc. and Canadian wireless data firm Research in Motion Ltd. agreed to build two-way pagers that access AOL. Microsoft Corp., with a possible court-ordered divestiture hanging overhead, and Qualcomm Inc. announced a partnership to develop wireless Web devices.
The ripple effect of the wireless Internet deals reached Wall Street in a big day. Stock of Aether Systems Inc., that wireless data juggernaut, soared to new heights and now threatens to break the $300 barrier.
It was not nearly so exciting back here, where Steve Case and Gerald Levin tried to convince Senate Judiciary Committee members that an AOL-Timer Warner merger will make broadband Internet safe for democracy.
“We see this as more than a merger of companies. We see it as a merger of ideas … ” said Case. Whose ideas? Senate members asked, leery that such a conglomerate might stifle-rather than stimulate-the free flow of information.
Not Chuck Schumer, the liberal senator from New York. Schumer suddenly became a free market guy, proclaiming the “government should be hesitant to interfere in new mergers.” Well whaddaya expect? Time Warner, headquartered in the City, was the fourth-largest contributor ($53,500) to Schumer in that memorably expensive and colorful ’98 race pitting “putzhead” against “Senator Pothole.” Hey, you gotta problem with that?
