PointCast (dotcom)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PointCast was a company founded in 1992 by Christopher R. Hassett in Sunnyvale, California, at the start of the Dot-com era.

Contents

[edit] PointCast Network

The company's initial product amounted to a screensaver that displayed news and other information, delivered live over the Internet. The PointCast Network used push technology, which was a hot concept at the time, and received enormous press coverage when it launched in Beta form on February 13, 1996.[1] The product did not perform as well as expected, in part because its traffic burdened corporate networks with excessive bandwidth use, and was banned in many places. It demanded more bandwidth than the home dial-up Internet connections of the day could provide, and people objected to the large number of advertisements that were pushed over the service as well.[2] The client was eventually bundled with Microsoft Windows.

[edit] News Corporation Purchase Offer and Change of CEO

At its height in January 1997, News Corporation made an offer of $450 million to purchase the company. However, the offer was withdrawn in March. While there were rumors that it was withdrawn due to issues with the price and revenue projections, James Murdoch said it was due to PointCast's inaction.[3][4]

Shortly after the purchase offer fell through, the board decided to replace Christopher Hassett as the CEO due to declining market share and performance problems with the software. After five months, David Dorman was chosen as the new CEO. In order to raise more capital, Dorman planned to take the company public and a filing was made in May 1998 with a valuation of $250 million. This plan was abandoned two months later, in favor of looking for a company to partner with or be acquired by.[4]

[edit] Project Newnet

In August 1998, PointCast found such a partner. In order to compete with @Home, a consortium of telephone companies and Microsoft put together a project designed to promote use of DSL in preference to cable modems. The project was dubbed "Newnet" and the plan was to use PointCast's software as a portal for the service. The consortium planned to buy PointCast for $100 million as part of the deal. The deal was signed in December 1998 with the intent of launching the service in April 1999.[4][5]

Due to delays in the project, Dorman resigned as CEO in March 1999. Two weeks later PointCast were informed that their planned acquisition had been scrapped. In the reorganisation that followed, 75 of the 220 employees were sacked in an effort to reduce costs.[6] A number of bids were made to buy the company including two from former CEO Christopher Hassett, which were rejected.[7][8]

Instead, they sold out for about $7 million in May 1999 to Launchpad Technologies, Inc., a San Diego company founded and backed by Idealab, and the PointCast network was shut down the next year.[2][3][9]

[edit] EntryPoint

Launchpad's eWallet product was combined with the existing PointCast technology to create EntryPoint, which had a free desktop toolbar and offered customized news, stocks and sports feeds.[10] The new client abandoned push technology, resulting in much more economical use of network bandwidth.

[edit] Infogate

EntryPoint merged with Internet Financial Network in 2000 forming Infogate, continuing the same free service until switching to a fee-based co-branded model, partnering with news outlets such as USA Today and CNN. Infogate was sold to AOL Time Warner in March 2003. Infogate's senior executives — Cliff Boro, Vidar Vignisson, and Tom Broadhead – formed CVT Ventures, LLC, a venture-development group dedicated to accelerating technology startups.

[edit] PointCast.com today

In 2005 AOL sold PointCast Network assets to PointCast Network, Inc. PointCast today has customizable news in images, web based screen saver, a facebook app and offers it's engine & technology for licensing and support. PointCast Network.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Aguilar, Rose. "PointCast unveils free news service", News.com, 1996-02-13. 
  2. ^ a b Meyer, Katherine. "The Best of the Worst", The Wall Street Journal, 2006-05-03. 
  3. ^ a b Kawamoto, Dawn and Borland, John. "PointCast acquired by Idealab", News.com, 1999-05-10. 
  4. ^ a b c Himelstein, Linda and Siklos, Richard. "PointCast: The Rise and Fall of an Internet Star", BusinessWeek, 1999-04-26. 
  5. ^ Smith, Tony. "PointCast strategic investor becomes buyer", The Register, 1998-12-03. 
  6. ^ Smith, Tony. "PointCast sacks third of workforce", The Register, 1999-04-02. 
  7. ^ Smith, Tony. "PointCast ex-CEO looks to re-acquire company", The Register, 1999-04-06. 
  8. ^ Smith, Tony. "PointCast rejects founder's buy-back offer", The Register, 1999-04-21. 
  9. ^ Lettice, John. "PointCast bows out for a mere $7 million", The Register, 1999-05-11. 
  10. ^ Welcome To EntryPoint. Archived from the original on 1999-10-13. Retrieved on 2008-01-11.