Level 3 communications question #2- Jeff Scott

Level 3 communications has a company funded by a number of wealthy investors, including Crowe. Crowe was CEO and level 3 quickly raised $3 billion achieving the goals Crowe had. The biggest goal was to raise money, rapidly build a high-capacity fiber-optic network that would link major cities in the United States, and then cut prices to attract demand from major users of fiber-optic networks, including corporations, Internet service providers such as AOL, and traditional telecommunications companies.

Crowe's strategic shift involved the purchase of two software distribution companies- software Spectrum and Corporate Software that specialized in selling, installing, and maintaining software made by companies such as Microsoft on the PCs and servers of some 9,000 corporate clients. The logic underlying the acquisitions was that level 3 could use its fiber-optic network to distribute and maintain the software, as opposed to doing that manually, thereby reducing costs.