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Technology Stocks : juno.com (JWEB)----IPO -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Whiteside who wrote (174)	6/28/1999 9:40:00 AM
From: Frank Perlmutter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 510

Takeover a definite possibility... Tend to agree with Preissler on this one... PaineWebber analyst James Preissler said a deal "could make sense for AOL." "The two companies are both essentially competing for the same group of new users -- the mass market consumers that are coming online currently," Preissler said in a report. "Juno, through its free e-mail offering, has a product that captures users who are not quite ready for the full Web experience and just testing the online waters through use of e-mail." He said other companies that could benefit from a combination with Juno included portal Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), Infoseek Corp. (Nasdaq: SEEK) and Snap.com, the joint venture between General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC unit and CNet Inc. (Nasdaq: CNET). ------------------------ To answer the question, "Why would AOL buy something they could offer themselves?" IMHO, comes down to an cost/effort issue-- Is it cheaper to develop this type of product ourselves and try to win over subscribers OR just spend the cash and acquire a company and its current subscribers? Lots of big companies opt for the second-- you can bet that AOL has done the numbercrunching on this one-- how it came out is anybody's guess. What stands out in my mind is the "no comment" by AOL on the deal. Juno is a competitor-- why wouldn't AOL just outright put the rumours to rest if there was no deal-- sure packs a nice blow to "a competitor." That answer says more of a takeover or partnership to me. Happy Trading! Frank