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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (23985)	6/25/1999 10:31:00 AM
From: Frank Griffin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

AOL EXPANDING ACCESS ALTERNATIVES - This week, AOL announced a strategic alliance with Hughes Electronics, which includes a $1.5 billion investment by AOL in Hughes. This investment will help Hughes expand its satellite products and services, which include DIRECTV, DirecPC and its 2-way satellite service called Spaceway. In return for AOL's investment, Hughes will promote AOL TV and AOL Plus high-speed service to its own customers, which include 7 million DIRECTV subscribers. We expect a satellite version of AOL Plus will be available in early 2000. We view this announcement as another step in AOL's overall broadband strategy. As high-speed access becomes a necessity over the next year, we believe AOL is well positioned to reach DSL, cable, wireless and now satellite audiences. While only an estimated 40,000 people in the U.S. receive Web access through Hughes satellites right now, we believe satellite offers an attractive alternative, as Web access is more easily bundled with existing television programming. Other related news this week included a formal announcement that AOL plans to launch a beta version of AOL 5.0 in July. The new version will be designed to handle both narrow band and broadband connections. AOL also recently announced a DSL agreement with Compaq, under which new Compaq Presario Internet PCs will be DSL-enabled with special features, including pre-installed AOL software. AOL also announced a strategic agreement with 3Com Corporation, to bundle AOL software into selected Palm Computing handheld products, allowing users to access their AOL e-mail accounts anywhere and anytime. Longer-term, the two companies plan to develop an AOL-branded wireless handheld organizer, as well as integrate complete AOL features and functionality into other Palm products. We view this news as significant, in that the Palm Computing platform has an installed base of over 4 million. For your info.