Inside The Cult Of Kibu - Company Business and Marketing

Industry Standard, The, Dec 25, 2000 by Lori Gottlieb

Lori Cottlieb is a freelance writer and the author of Stick figure: A Diary of My Former Self which has been optioned for film by Martin Scorsese.

BILL ESREY

CHAIRMAN AND CEO, SPRINT

The demand for round-the-clock high-speed connectivity pushed major telecoms to rethink their strategies.

When AT&T and British Telecom found that their internal structure and business emphasis were out of sync with industry moves, they realized that some radical changes were in order. Such shifts simply underscore the importance of new types of communication and information transfer. It's changing the way people work and conduct meetings. Business people now rely on the Internet for information they traditionally got through more cumbersome methods. The some goes for consumers. I get withdrawal pains if I'm not connected. In fact, when I'm skiing I wear an earpiece connected to my cell phone, which is hidden in my parka and set for automatic answer. One time, as I was cruising down the slope, I got a call from out company president. Since I wanted to concentrate on the conversation rather than kill myself, I pulled over to the side, and I stood there in the snow just talking away.

HILARY ROSEN

PRESIDENT AND CEO, RECORDING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Napster's success shook the music industry and forced record labels to rethink their digital distribution models.

Customer's go where there's least resistance. In that vein, Napster got very popular because it's easy and free. The challenge right now is to figure out how to both serve the customer and protect the investment. Free and easy, in the short term, sounded like a great deal for the consumer but I think most people recognize it's not a great long-term solution for everyone. The Napster-Bertelsmann deal outlined a couple of important fundamental issues. For one, Napster itself concluded that to make money it needed to be a legitimate business, with licensed material from copyright owners. As they implement that plan, it's going to be much more complicated that the system they have now -- one that doesn't track anything and doesn't have any obligations to it. There's probably some new sympathy for what the record companies have been going through over the past two years as they tried to develop a legitimate marketplace.

JOEL KLEIN

FORMER ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL

The government's antitrust strategy against Microsoft will serve as a model for battling future monopolies.

With Microsoft, while we have yet to see the final outcome we've seen a full trial involving significant competitive issues in network industries. This is important to how we think about competition in the 21st century in a highly technologically, driven setting. To some extent the issues in the Microsoft case will set the template for the future I believe the practices at issue in the case will draw the line between appropriate competitive practices and those that run afoul of the law. My sense is that the public and politicians have a generally strong commitment to antitrust enforcement and except for a few cases, I think you'll see support across the board. The public knows that businesses have an interest in profits, which is fine. But it's only through antitrust enforcement that the business' interest in profits and the consumers' interest in competition are effectively implemented.