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Mobilestar Less Mobile; Excite@Home Less Exciting
jc1 writes: "MobileStar, provider of 802.11b wireless LAN connectivity throughout 500 of the USA's Starbucks cafes, has laid off 88 of its staff, which a source described as "everybody". With the demise in August of Metricom's Ricochet service, one is left to wonder if there is a business to be made in providing public wireless Internet services." Or any broadband internet access at all - Excite@Home, currently in bankruptcy proceedings, has stopped taking any new orders.
All these people are being laid off, and now they'll be sitting around in Starbucks without even having any connectivity.
Path to Profitability.
2 years ago, it was get a customer base, then figure out how to exploit them to make a profit. Now people have realized that there are no barriers to entry, so you can't raise prices later. You have to show up front how you can make money off of each and every customer from day one, then hope you get enough of them to overcome useless overhead in the corporation (read, the CEO, CTO, C??, and much of the marketing dept.)
The days of giving away dollar bills for 3 quarters to generate revenue are over for the internet, show me how you can make money, or go the way of the Dodo bird
I've emailed Starbucks about availability of this service and they responded that they do not advertise it until all stuff is trained, but I am welcome to go to the store and try. I went, and it actually works very nice, thought little expensive.
Taking into account all expenses of running T1 into each of 500 stores, delaying service roll out could cost a lot. I guess it cost enough to run Mobile Star into financial problems.