By Jon Bernstein, 3 November 2000 09:15
NEWS The Guardian reports that Napster's decision to do a deal with German publisher Bertlesmann has opened the way for Gnutella, Freenet et al to emerge from the shadows. Users, the paper says, are angry about Napster's volte face and MP3.com chief executive, Michael Robertson, declared: "This is the end of Napster. There's simply no way to start charging and have a secure music system and right next door have all the music in the world for free." Trouble elsewhere today comes in the form of job cuts. The Financial Times reports that Priceline.com, the online marketplace that invites customers to name their price, is set to axe 16 per cent of its workforce. To make matters worse, chief financial officer, Heidi Miller is also leaving. In a world where financial sobriety is a defence against dot-com excess, Miller's appointment from Citigroup last year was seen as a major coup. Bad news, too, for the UK's largest cable operator, NTL. According to The Times the firm run by Barclay Knapp, is planning to shed 1,300 jobs following a major internal review. Knapp told the paper that the time was right "to carry out a review of the way we run our business with an eye towards realising all of the cost benefits of consolidation." Talking of consolidation, further evidence of a shakeout in the cable industry came in the shape of Telewest's acquisition of Eurobell. The £280m purchase, writes the Guardian, brings Telewest 171,000 residential and 10,500 corporate customers.
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