Money from Today or Yesterday

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Of course historical financials are obsolete, particularly in tech industries, where the marketplace changes almost monthly. But that's how businesses are run - managers and investors alike judge a company's performance based on ratios and percentages and moving averages. Yes, on the surface the bottom line is the bottom line - but it's tough to determine the condition of a business at a single point in time, for various external factors.

Past trends typically determine future growth - but that's only because analysts have been tracking so-called product lifecycles for what, a couple decades now. New fangled gadgets have extremely volatile lifecycles, so it's hard for a company like Apple or Microsoft to base their business models on the past five years. That's why companies pay obscene prices for crystal-ball research that's *supposedly* telling of upcoming shifts in the marketplace.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you're saying. But in 3-4 years, there is going to be a VERY intense and complex battle when ISPs, cable cos and phone companies all converge in the broadband marketplace. Comcast is ahead of the game - they have plans to roll out their all-in-one (cable, internet and phone) by January (they already support those existing AT&T broadband customers who use VoIP). SBC Communications just released their all-in-one (phone, DSL and cable) in partnership with Cox cable (I think in Indiana or Illinois or some major market). And now Microsoft later this year will testing a cable-over-IP service with ... I forget which phone company. Might be Qwest. Companies like Earthlink also has potential, though they piggy back on phone networks, for the most part.

Still, that's the reason AT&T bailed - these companies already have or will soon have massive fiber-optic networks spanning on the country, which will basically eliminate the need for long-distance service (just as VoIP is eroding long-distance prices). Since AT&T no longer has any sort of infrastructure ... they're fucked, in short. I really don't know what they'll do, but I quoted an analyst in a story the other day who said he thinks AT&T will be sold off within 5 or 8 years.