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Technology Stocks : WavePhore (WAVO)- VBI fed WaveTop for WebTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: AJ Berger who wrote (998)	3/9/1998 3:48:00 PM
From: Ken Turetzky	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2843

****Microsoft's Undisclosed Wavephore Investment 03/09/98 PHOENIX, ARIZONA, U.S.A., 1998 MAR 9 (NB) -- By Craig Menefee, Newsbytes. Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT] bought 500,000 shares of stock in Wavephore [NASDAQ:WAVO] last November, matching Intel Corp. [NASDAQ:INTC] as the second-largest shareholder. Microsoft never talked about its investment but Bloomberg News reported it Friday and the price of Wavephore's stock vaulted about 24 percent by the time trading ended. Glen Williamson, Wavephore's chief operating officer, told Newsbytes he is not inclined to complain, especially in the face of the market's reaction. "One part of the story is that Wavephore and WaveTop have not been in the mainstream of the market's awareness," said Williamson, in a conversation from his automobile cell phone. "What this did was put a very bright flag in front of a lot of people." WaveTop is the Wavephore content delivery system for PCs. It does not depend on modems but, instead, uses the vertical blanking intervals (VBI) in standard television signals to piggy-back content over to TV-enabled PCs. Content is broadcast on signals from the 264 member stations of the Public Broadcasting System, covering more than 99% of US households. Microsoft and Intel both have strategic relationships with WaveTop. As part of the Microsoft deal, WaveTop will be included in Microsoft Windows 98, the new operating system scheduled for release in the second quarter of 1998. Still, marketing alliances are one thing, active investment another. By Monday morning after Bloomberg's disclosure, Wavephore stock was still trading at more than 300 percent of its normal volume, holding at around $10. Heavy profit-taking from the 1.9 million shares traded Friday had dropped the price only about 3/16. About Microsoft's investment, Williamson told Newsbytes: "We have no further comments to make on their investment, other than that we were as shocked to learn of it as anybody. And happy, and surprised." He added: "Intel and Microsoft are now our largest institutional investors. We're being judged by the company we keep." They say you can hear a smile over the phone. Williamson was smiling. Microsoft's 500,000 shares gives it a reported 2.88 percent stake in Wavephore, dead even with the Intel stake. The percentage is not high enough to require formal disclosure, financial sources told Newsbytes. Reported by Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com . (19980309 /WAVEPHORE/PHOTO)