MSN Gets New Latin American Portals; But Not in Brazil

In a joint venture with Telmex, Mexico’s largest telco and ISP, Microsoft has launched a new Spanish-language MSN portal for Latin America. However, Microsoft’s plan for a similar Portuguese-language joint venture with Brazilian cable TV operator Globo Cabo has fallen through.

The Telmex/Microsoft venture, headquartered in Mexico, was announced last year (see “Telmex Deal to Form Spanish-Language Web Portal” on page 18 of the Dec. 1999 Update). Gerardo Villarreal has been appointed CEO. The Spanish-language portal, www.T1MSN.com, will become the default portal for Telmex’s 300,000 ISP accounts in Mexico and also for users of Microsoft’s existing MSN Mexico portal (www.msn.com.mx). The Mexican portal is the first launched by the joint venture, but others will follow—MSN and Telmex plan to create country-specific T1MSN portals throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America, all with a common look. The MSN Latinoamerica Web site (www.latam.msn.com) is already co-branded with T1MSN.

However, plans to launch a similar portal with Brazil’s Globo Cabo have not worked out. In Aug. 1999, Microsoft invested US$126 million to obtain an 11% interest in Globo Cabo. Though Globo Cabo will go ahead with plans to use Microsoft set-top boxes for its cable customers, it has decided not to merge its portal (www.globo.com) with MSN’s existing Brazilian portal. This leaves MSN in Brazil without a local partner. During a March press conference at Microsoft’s Latin America Enterprise Solutions Conference 2000 in Miami, Bill Gates said that Microsoft is “exploring a number of alternatives.”