To: re3 who wrote (67913 ) 7/15/1999 7:50:00 PM From: Glenn D. Rudolph Respond to of 164687
Audiohighway stock races on Microsoft deal news CUPERTINO, Calif., July 15 (Reuters) - Shares of Internet entertainment company Audiohighway.com <AHWY.O> surged 19 percent on Thursday after it said it would pilot an audiobooks channel on Microsoft MSN's WindowsMedia.com Web channel. Shares jumped $4.125 to trade at $25.25 each on the Nasdaq stock market. In the deal, Microsoft Corp. <MSFT.O> said it will feature links from the home page of WindowsMedia.com,windowsmedia.com , to Audiohighway.com's audiobooks channel. Microsoft MSN is Microsoft's online service. "WindowsMedia.com is where users can experience the most innovative multimedia content on the Internet," Bill Spencer, director of Business Development at Microsoft, said in a statement. "Audiohighway.com is one of the most popular sites we link to, and it was selected as a featured audiobooks content provider due to its extensive and compelling collection of audiobooks." An agreement signed earlier this year integrated Audiohighway.com's (http://www.audiohighway.com) extensive library of free audio content via headlines on WindowsMedia.com's Music and Entertainment channels. Audiohighway.com said both deals were designed to drive more traffic to the Web site. "Providing the content for the audiobooks channel, combined with our current presence on WindowsMedia.com site, holds tremendous potential for Audiohighway.com's from both traffic-building and e-commerce standpoints," said Jay Adams, director of business development for Audiohighway.com. Thursday is the second day in a row shares of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company rose on news. On Wednesday, Audiohighway.com said it was granted a U.S. patent on portable digital recording and playback devices, which have increased in popularity as digital audio downloaded from the Internet has become a hotbed of activity for the industry. Shares of Microsoft were trading at $94.75 on Thursday afternoon. REUTERS Rtr 19:09 07-15-99