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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rande Is who wrote (7237)	5/19/1999 10:34:00 PM
From: findstock	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 57584

well this is from a release on the 17th, The Healtheon talks follow an effort by Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) to buy a stake in WebMD. Microsoft offered to buy about 25% of investors' shares, at least two shareholders said, but the status of that offer is uncertain. Microsoft declined to comment. The Healtheon-WebMD deal would give the combined company a leg up in the race to become the dominant "portal," or entryway, for health information on the Internet. Consumers have become voracious seekers of such information. Health and medical companies had been relatively slow to embrace the Web, due to the sheer variety and form of health-care information as well as concerns about privacy, but have been racing to catch up and establish a presence there over the past nine to 12 months. Other Internet players include drkoop.com Inc., a health-information Web site (www.drkoop.com) established by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, as well as Medscape Inc. (www.medscape.com), which boasts as its editor George Lundberg, former editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Usage by Doctors It remains to be seen, however, whether doctors will fully embrace the Internet; in the past, efforts to get physicians to adopt new technology have met with resistance. Healtheon, Santa Clara, Calif., went public in February. Talk of the merger sent Healtheon shares 21% higher in Nasdaq Stock Market trading on Friday, to close at $57, up $10. The deal would mean a big payoff for WebMD's 29-year-old founder and chairman, Jeffrey Arnold. He holds 3.9 million shares of WebMD, or 21.5% of the company, according to WebMD's registration statement. Another beneficiary would be Boland T. Jones, a WebMD director as well as chairman and chief executive of Atlanta-based Premiere Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:PTEK - news) Jones, 38, holds 2.2 million shares of WebMD, or 12.7% of the company, while Premiere Technologies holds another 2.1 million, or 12.1%.