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PointCast picks new CEO
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October 24, 1997: 1:10 p.m. ET
'Push' pioneer taps former PacBell chief David Dorman for top slot
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - PointCast Inc., the pioneer of "push" broadcasting on the Internet, said David Dorman, chief executive of regional telephone company PacBell, will be its next chief executive officer.
The 43-year-old Dorman will manage all its operational aspects, the company announced late Thursday. He takes over from PointCast Chairman Craig Hassett, who said in June the company was searching for someone to assume control of daily operations.
Although PointCast was first to stream customized information to viewers via the Internet, that market has since become crowded with Netscape Communications Corp. and Microsoft Corp. both including their own versions of "push" in their latest browsers.
But Dorman told CNNfn that PointCast is still a leader in technology, and has an advantage.
"We have a niche that we're focused on," he said. "They're very broad-based software companies. We're a focused media company, and I think that's going to be an important differentiation for us going forward."
PointCast, launched in 1992, claims more than 1.1 million people regularly use the service, although analysts told Reuters news service that while the number of people using the Internet has grown in recent months, PointCast hasn't snagged a significant portion of those users.
One reason might be that computer networks tend to get bogged down with the service. But Dorman said as bandwidth expands, the hassle that PointCast sometimes causes will essentially go away.
"Some people might be complaining because they have a network that might not have the capacity to even do their basic business, but frankly, our technology really conserves bandwidth," he said. "We've cut down the amount of transport that we require to ship information, and it's just not as big a factor as it might have been even just a year ago."
Last summer, rumors surfaced that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. might be willing to pay anywhere from $350 million to $450 million for the company, although officials consistently refused to comment on those rumors.
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