[ih] Minitel (was: Re: OSI and alternate realiv )

[Vint Cerf]

In 1983, we launched MCI Mail and I tried to persuade Minitel to
interconnect so people in France could reach our users. They flay refused.

v


On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 6:30 PM Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond via
Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 16/03/2024 22:17, Bob Purvy via Internet-history wrote:
> > Even when they actually*had*  the future up and running, they spurned it:
> >
> > Minitel. It caught on, the French loved it, and the PTT still failed to
> > capitalize on it.
>
> France Telecom made an absolute killing with it - with hundreds of
> millions of yearly revenue for several years. The main asset (initially)
> which eventually turned into a disadvantage was that it was using
> Videotex, a display technology that was invented in the 70s which
> allowed for rudimentary graphics at a low cost.
> When the World Wide Web arrived, its display capabilities vastly
> overwhelmed the capabilities of Minitel, besides it being much cheaper
> to use the Internet than Minitel. As people started owning computers,
> software for connecting to Minitel was flimsy and connecting to Minitel
> services at 1200/75 baud was flimsy and unreliable since the most
> commonly used modem was US Robotics which evolved from Courier ->
> Courier HST -> Sportster going from V.32 to V.90.
>
> But the people at France Telecom still thought Minitel was better than
> Internet. I had a private meeting at 103 Rue de Grenelle, France
> Telecom's Headquarters in Paris, in 1997, where the heads of France
> Telecom, TransPac and VTCOM (the multimedia arm of France Telecom at the
> time) laughed at my presentation in relation to the Internet because "it
> is in English, people need a computer and it is not sustainable" - with
> the joke being "you are kidding yourself if you can make money with
> something that you are giving for free" - the open joke being on "Les
> Américains" who were obviously going to hit a brick wall and come back
> to a more sustainable model like Minitel.
>
> They only understood that Minitel had lived its day in 2012. By then all
> the people I had spoken to had retired. I guess Minitel did live longer
> than I expected.
>
> Kindest regards,
>
> Olivier
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


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