GigaMedia (
The new site will make use of Yahoo's existing broadband services, including programs from over 500 radio stations, 65 television stations and cable networks, CDs, movies, documentaries, audio books and music concerts.
The companies will also work to develop corporate broadband services such as Webcast press conferences, trade shows, stockholder meetings, training sessions and distance learning.
"This cooperation with Yahoo offers our subscribers more broadband content choices, which we expect to further drive up our subscriber growth," said GigaMedia CEO, Raymond Chang (
He said the two companies would finalize a revenue sharing agreement for the Web site at a later date and, further, he expects the company to reach its goal of 200,000 subscribers by the end of 2001, despite having around 35,000 currently.
Koo's Group (
He said the broadband agreement would position the group for the next generation of Internet use, high speed multimedia services, while the group's mobile phone service provider, KG Telecom (和信電), would continue making headway into wireless Web services. KG Telecom announced the opening of its GPRS mobile Internet service yesterday at a separate press conference.
But one analyst who requested anonymity said GigaMedia might have been forced into an "unfavorable" revenue sharing agreement with Yahoo due to fallout from the NASDAQ dotcom stock implosion that sent GigaMedia's share price from an opening day high of US$88 -- a market valuation of US$4.5 billion at the time -- down to around US$10 per share today.
With the value of the stock beaten down, GigaMedia had to negotiate from a weak position, he said.
Goldman Sachs analyst Rajeev Gupta, however, brushed aside such comments, calling the deal "nothing other than positive for GigaMedia" because of the involvement of Internet powerhouse Yahoo.
"Yahoo brings with it international recognition and high quality broadband sites and services," said Gupta. "They already provide content to [Yahoo subsidiary] Broadcast.com."
He pointed out that Yahoo has both broadband content -- a database of movies and music -- and the necessary equipment to deliver the product. The partnership with GigaMedia opens Yahoo to a Taiwanese audience, as GigaMedia has the ability to provide broadband Internet services to over 70 percent of Taiwan through an existing infrastructure of cable TV lines.
The popularity of broadband Internet has grown quickly across Asia, according to Gupta, principally in places where the price for service is very low. "In Korea, broadband adoption is very very strong, and why? Because prices are very low, so people adopt the service," he said.
He said GigaMedia's plan is to draw new subscribers by offering high quality broadband content and services, instead of lowering prices. It is a business plan he calls "very smart."
Lower priced broadband services might, however, be forthcoming with the addition of three new fixed-line telecommunications companies next year. In a bid to encourage competition in the local telecom market, the government sold three new licenses last year.
Representatives from two of the three new companies -- Eastern Telecom and New Century InfoComm -- discussed Internet broadband opportunities during Taipei Telecom 2000 last week, indicating possible partnerships with local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Seednet or Hinet.
Gupta, however, brushed aside concerns about competition, saying that to compete with GigaMedia in broadband service it would take an investment "if not in the hundreds of millions [of US dollars], then in the billions. They [the new telecom companies] would have to install very expensive equipment."
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
RSS