Dell Does Bundling
Wired News Report
The computer maker packages hardware with its new Internet access service. Also: Is AOL hypocritical on "open-access?".... And the controversy over alterations to Kubrick's last film won't go away.
Dell is making a big push into the consumer market, bundling its hardware with a new Net access service.
The computer manufacturer said Tuesday it would begin offering a US$959 machine that comes with an Intel Celeron 400 MHz processor, keyboard, monitor, Windows 98, and Works application software, a three-year warranty, online technical support ... and a year's worth of DellNet Internet access.
Qwest turns a profit
AOL challenged on "open access"
Critics rip Kubrick film alterations- - - - - -
Dell's price tag is considerably higher than competing pitches from some home-PC sellers who have access arrangements with Net providers. Dell's deal, however, requires few, if any, of the sacrifices of the other plans, many of which exclude key PC components like monitors or ask for a three-year Internet commitment.
After years of shunning the low-cost PC market, Dell's move has been widely anticipated, and marks an effort to build profitable ties to consumers by subsidizing initial PC costs and making money back on future purchases. It also matches a move by rival Gateway, which began offering Net access with its computers in February.
Both the Dell (DELL) and Gateway (GTW) services come via arrangements with MCI WorldCom's UUNet.
Back to topIn the black: Qwest, the long-distance company that's reshaping itself into a broadband Internet player, made some money in its most recent quarter.
The company reported Tuesday that it earned 2 cents a share in the quarter ended 30 June – a penny better than the First Call forecast – on record revenues of $873.3 million. In the same quarter a year ago Qwest (QWST) posted a loss of more than $800 million, or $1.67 a share.
In addition to long-distance phone service, Qwest runs a digital wireless network and is running trials for a high-speed wireless data service. It recently struck a deal to acquire US West, the largest US provider of high-speed digital subscriber line, or DSL Internet access services.
4. Back to topAOL's quandary: America Online wants access to other companies' cable lines, but is struggling mightily to keep its instant messaging service closed. A public policy analyst said that the apparent double standard could force AOL to back down in the battles with Microsoft and Yahoo that broke out late last week.
Cable companies have required customers buying high-speed Net access over cable lines to also buy Internet services like email and Web page hosting from them. AOL, feeling locked out, has said the exclusive deals are unfair to other Internet service providers.
But "open is open," Legg Mason Precursor Group analyst Scott Cleland said Monday. "When you're denying consumers a choice of something, it looks bad in any case."
Online analyst Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communications, predicted AOL's position on cable access would ultimately trump its decision to close up its instant messaging product. Cable companies like AT&T "will use AOL's instant messaging position as a defense," Arlen said. "Cable open access is truly the much bigger, longer-term issue."
In fact, AT&T general counsel Jim Cicconi did just as Arlen predicted, issuing a statement calling AOL's moves "hypocritical and antithetical to the very ethos of the Internet."
6\. [Back to top](#top)__Critics object:__ The controversy over the [digital altering](https://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/20750.html) of *Eyes Wide Shut* widened Monday, as New York film critics joined their Los Angeles colleagues in condemning Warner Bros. for releasing a "censored" version of Stanley Kubrick's last movie.
Criticizing the decision to mask a sex scene, the letter signed by 28 members of the New York Film Critics Circle also sharply criticized the movie industry's system of motion picture ratings – G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17.
"The fundamental issue underlying this controversy is that the Classification and Ratings Administration of the Motion Picture Assn. of America is out of control," the New York critics wrote. "It has become a punitive and restrictive force, effectively trampling the freedom of American filmmakers."
The latest flap over the Hollywood ratings board grew out of the digital alteration of a 65-second sequence of *Eyes Wide Shut* in which Tom Cruise's character walks through a mansion observing an orgy.
Executive producer Jan Harlan, Kubrick's brother-in-law, has defended the alteration, saying he and Kubrick discussed the matter during production and decided they could add the digital changes if needed to gain an R rating. Kubrick died about four months before the film was released.
*Reuters contributed to this report.*
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