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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (87508)	12/15/1999 8:19:00 AM
From: re3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

why would anyone hold stocks with 16 days to y2k is beyond me... except for gold and oil of course <g>

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (87508)	12/15/1999 8:38:00 AM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Glenn, did you know that the Amazons have caught the imagination? << NEW YORK (AP) - Faced with a growing threat from online booksellers and discount chains, the Book-of-the-Month Club is teaming up with rival Doubleday Direct, another major book club, in a wide-ranging alliance aimed at cutting costs and ramping up online operations. Many details of the agreement announced Tuesday remain to be decided, including who will head the new parent company of both clubs, but both companies will continue to market books under their own names. Once the main way that Americans bought books from home, book clubs have seen their business model serious challenged in the last decade from the likes of Amazon.com as well as major discount chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders. ``Our business has been deteriorating for a long time,' said Markus Wilhelm, chairman and CEO of Doubleday Direct. ``If you have discounters selling at essentially cost, it's difficult for book clubs to make money. If we want to preserve the book club model we need to change it.' Under the deal, the book clubs will share the names of existing customers as well as the considerable cost of acquiring new ones through marketing campaigns. In addition to their main general-interest clubs, which for Doubleday is the Literary Guild club, both companies also run several other book clubs catering to special interests like science fiction and sports. But a major reason for the deal is sharing the cost of expansion. Both clubs are part of major media conglomerates - Time Warner Inc. for Book-of-the-Month Club and Bertelsmann for Doubleday Direct - and therefore do not have the easy access to capital enjoyed by Amazon.com, whose stock has soared despite never turning a profit. George Artandi, chairman and CEO of Book-of-the-Month Club, said the deal should allow the companies to ``make the technological and operational investments necessary to serve existing members and attract more book lovers to our clubs.' Industry analysts saw the deal as a good move for both companies. ``I think it makes eminent sense - there's always a drive for more efficiency in bookselling,' said Larry Crutcher, a managing director at Veronis, Suhler, an investment bank specializing in media companies. ``The Amazons have captured the imagination as well as most of the new growth in the business.'