America Online has signed on another multimillion-dollar exclusive marketing partner. Software.net will become the sole reseller of downloadable software on AOL's proprietary network and its AOL.com Web site, the company announced on Thursday.
Under the three-year agreement, AOL will receive US$21 million in guaranteed payments, and will also share in advertising revenues.
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BT eyes US, again: British Telecommunications PLC shares hit a 52-week high on Thursday, as reports circulated that the company is talking with US telcos to get in on the action stateside.
"We are currently assessing our options in the US and are talking to a number of major players," Robert Brace, BT group finance director, was quoted as saying in a Dow Jones report. The company has been relatively quiet in the US since WorldCom beat out BT in its bid to merge with MCI. Today Brace said his company had agreed not to compete with MCI-WorldCom until the merger is finalized - but that isn’t stopping BT from crafting a new deal.
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Lighting up PCS: Lucent Technologies won a $500 million contract with wireless telco PrimeCo Personal Communications to supply digital equipment and services to develop the PCS network, the companies announced on Thursday. The three-year, exclusive contract will give the PrimeCo a slew of switches, CDMA mini-cell equipment and other transmission and power equipment for its 28-city service.
The deal "will allow PrimeCo to logically progress from short messaging services to interactive transactions and the transfer of larger volumes of data," said Limond Grindstaff, PrimeCo's chief technical officer. "The provider that does the best job of translating PCS/wireless technology into innovative products and services will have a distinct competitive advantage. PrimeCo intends to be that company."
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Motorola talks NetSpeak: Motorola Inc. will seek to increase its stake in NetSpeak Corp through a cash tender offer for 3 million NetSpeak shares at $30 each, NetSpeak said Thursday. The expanded long-term strategic relationship will combine NetSpeak’s Internet protocol telephony technology with Motorola's wireless technology to enable Internet protocol multimedia communications on wireless networks, the company said. The deal would give Motorola a 34.5 percent stake in NetSpeak. it currently holds 10.1 percent of NetSpeak’s outstanding shares.
Under a joint development and licensing agreement, NetSpeak has granted Motorola an exclusive license to develop Radio Frequency products using NetSpeak technology. Shares of both Motorola and NetSpeak were up on Thursday.
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Going south: Intel formally opened a huge computer chip plant in Costa Rica Wednesday. The world's leading microprocessor maker said it will export Pentium II microprocessors from the factory, located at La Ribera de Belen, about 12 miles northwest of the capital, San Jose. Mike Splinter, an Intel corporate vice president, said at the opening that the Costa Rican plant would export a quarter of the company's worldwide production by the end of this year.
Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres turned out to help open the plant, saying Intel will export $700 million in product during the first year. He said the plant would help Costa Rica reach its target of sustained annual economic growth of around 6 percent for the next few years.
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My customers are your customers: MCI and Siemens say they have struck a five-year, $2.1 billion revenue-sharing deal in which the two companies will jointly sell equipment and services to each other's customers. MCI and Siemens' Business Communication Systems unit say the deal will provide their respective customers with a single point of contact to buy end-to-end telecommunications systems. Under terms of the pact, the Siemens telecommunications equipment unit will deliver business to MCI, while MCI will conduct joint sales activities.
Reuters contributed to this report.
