Coast to Coast, Different Views From the Top

Technology's financial future looks pretty bright from the top floors of the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle in New York City, significantly more so than from the Intel executive suite in Santa Clara. This insight comes thanks to a pair of profiles chronicling the triumph and trepidation of two members of the industry's top brass, Time Warner Inc. chief Richard D. Parsons and Intel Corp. chief Paul S. Otellini.

Parsons and Otellini see the landscape from opposite ends of the telescope right now, with Time Warner continuing to shake off the bust while once-high-flying Intel considers recharting its course in the face of tough competition. It's a trenchant illustration of the peril in classifying the quality of the technology climate, which tastes like fresh air to some but is proving toxic to others.

The Parsons file, an exclusive to the New York Daily News, finds the 56-year-old media mogul savoring more than just an "exquisite view of Central Park" as quiet jazz percolates in the background: "He had reason to feel good. He'd proved his doubters wrong. Two and a half years ago, Time Warner was still reeling from its disastrous marriage to America Online. It was a debacle that cost everyone from mom and pop investors to CNN founder Ted Turner tens of billions of dollars. Parsons, the new boss and sole survivor of the merger, was second-guessed from Wall Street to Hollywood."

AOL, the paper explained in its version of the oft-told tale, was the albatross around Time Warner's neck. The company still has plenty of problems, the article said, but investors' attitudes have come a long way in the past couple of years: Parsons "said he plans to keep the online giant and revealed that he turned down numerous offers from suitors who didn't see its 'value.' He took a big gamble, ignoring investors who early on begged him to bail out. Now with the online ad and paid-search markets booming, those same investors are singing a different tune. 'We're the only major media company in the world with a serious Internet play, so what I'm hearing from investors is "Dick, hang on to that Internet."'"

Parsons is credited with making the AOL-Time Warner team remember who's in charge of what around headquarters. "Insiders note that he put an end to a culture where arrogant, newly rich AOL execs dictated the empire's strategy," the Daily News reported. "That means AOLers no longer tell their colleagues at Warner Bros. how to market flicks."

But here's what remains to be done: "He still must tackle AOL, now going through yet another revamp. The online giant continues to lose hundreds of thousands of subscribers. But analysts note that AOL, on a cost-cutting tear, will generate a whopping $1.5 billion in operating profits this year. Some are optimistic about a new strategy aimed at capturing the ad dollars flowing to the Internet. That's crucial, because in the end, Parsons's report card will hinge very much on AOL's future."
• New York Daily News: Time Warner Triumphs Under Parsons

Also be sure to check out an accompanying Daily News article on Parsons "the man."

"When Dick Parsons, 56, escorts his mother to her church in Queens people often greet him with the words, 'I'm praying for you.' 'It's a black thing,' said Parsons, one of the country's most prominent African-American business leaders. 'You are in their prayers -- literally,'" the article said. "Not much in Parsons's early life foretold where he'd end up. The man who runs the world's largest media empire, who hosted the all-star gala opening of the Time Warner Center, and who names former governor Nelson Rockefeller among his mentors, started life on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant."
• New York Daily News: High-Powered Career

Three thousand miles from Bed-Stuy, another company whose name is a household word is taking it on the chin, as a profile in the New York Times notes: "For two decades, Intel has been the most sure-footed of Silicon Valley companies. But lately, it seems to have lost its way. 'They have made many wrong decisions and now it's time for soul-searching and structural, not cosmetic, changes,' said Ashok Kumar, a financial analyst at Raymond James & Associates. This all portends an interesting inauguration for Intel's 50-year-old president, Paul S. Otellini, the longtime Intel marketing executive tapped by the board this month to become only the fourth chief executive in the company's history."

Otellini, whose premature introduction of digital television technology was a fizzle (see the headline and the beginning of the article for a creative way to use projection-television chips), said he is planning a fundamental reorganization. "Mr. Otellini will tell analysts that he plans to focus on four areas for growth: international markets for desktop personal computers, mobile and wireless applications, the digital home, as well as a new initiative aimed at large corporate computing markets that Intel is calling the Digital Office," the Times reported. "The strategy is a significant shift -- a 'right-hand turn,' as Mr. Otellini likes to say -- from Intel's long-term obsession with making ever-faster computer chips. Instead, the company is now concentrating on what he calls platforms: complete systems aimed at both computing and consumer electronics markets."