Push technology company PointCast Inc named its new chief executive officer on Friday. He is David Dorman, former chief executive of Pacific Bell Corp, one of the Baby Bell regional telephone operators. Dorman, 43, has headed PacBell since July 1994, and took on the additional role of Chairman in 1996. Before that, he spent 13 years at Sprint Corp. At PointCast, he will be both president and chief executive, taking over from company founder Chris Hassett, who remains chairman. The appointment ends a search which has been going on since June, when Hassett first announced his intention to move upstairs. He said the company was looking for someone with a great deal of operational experience, a phrase interpreted by many as an indication that privately held PointCast is looking towards an initial public offering of its shares. Dorman’s package is heavily equity based, he said, which would also suggest an IPO. A few months back, after the talks with News Corp had broken down following its $425m offer for the company, there were rumors going round that PointCast was once again in play and Microsoft Corp was the likely buyer. Dorman said he is definitely not shopping the company round now, but he would not rule out anything at the moment. PointCast has 27 channels at the moment and 1.2 million ‘viewers’ Dorman said he hopes to double the number of viewers within 18 months. The company, one of the first to make a success of push technology, now faces an ever growing legion of competitors in the market it pioneered, including Microsoft and Netscape Communications Corp. Dorman indicated he would be carrying out a review of the company’s financing.
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