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Technology Stocks : MPPP - MP3.com -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DAY TRADER who wrote (377)	7/22/1999 1:48:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 1116

$1B or $7B? It's still small compared to the competition. AT&T, Matsushita Partner with Universal, BMG to Sell Music Online Kenneth Li 05/27/1999 KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Daily News - New York City Copyright (C) 1999 KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News; Source: World Reporter (TM) Telephone giant AT&T hopes to soar up the digital music charts by helping consumers more easily purchase and download music, videos and song lyrics. Ma Bell struck alliances with Japanese electronics giant Matsushita Electric along with music labels BMG Entertainment and Seagram's Universal to create a new way to download music from popular artists including the Backstreet Boys, DMX, Beck and David Bowie off the Internet. The venture would reach about 40 percent of music listeners around the world and is expected to be available to consumers by the holiday shopping season, AT&T said. The move comes just a week after AT&T suffered a serious blow to its digital music division, a2b Music, with more than half of the staff -- including co-founders Howie Singer and Larry Miller and 12 others -- defecting to start-up technology firm Reciprocal. Reciprocal, which is funded by Microsoft, is developing digital rights management technology for online music. AT&T said the latest alliance will certainly not be the last. "AT&T intends to explore a spectrum of opportunities to be a leader in digital music," said Mercedes Walton, vice president for corporate strategy and business development. AT&T said its new service would work with the up-coming Secure Digital Music Initiative, which is a technological guideline aimed to reign in the growing market for music available on the Internet. Forrester Research estimates that online music sales will total $1.1 billion in the U.S. by 2003. The moves also follow similar partnerships between Sony Music and Microsoft two weeks ago to deliver similar services. IBM also has inked deals with the five major music labels including Sony Music and BMG to test its universal standard music delivery system in 1,000 homes using Time Warner's Road Runner cable modem service. Traditional music labels were dragged into the digital fray after discovering a vast amount of pirated music was available for downloading online. Analysts said the companies may be hard pressed to finish by the holiday shopping season. "This is going to be a close call," said Geoffrey Sands, a partner in Booz-Allen & Hamilton's media and entertainment division. "Everybody across every business has highlighted this Christmas season as the watershed event in E-commerce."