Partnership deals appear unaffected by MSN/Bell deal
A spokesperson for Bell Canada tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that, in the wake of a new portal partnership between Microsoft Corp. and Bell, third-party services such as the MUSICMATCH service (CNM, Oct. 3/02) will continue to operate in business-as-usual fashion. Once the co-branded portal is launched next year, Bell "will continue to be responsible for building third-party content partnerships for Canadians and will continue to offer our own and third-party services to our customers. The specific business arrangements for services such as MUSICMATCH are between Bell and its partners." The same spokesperson also says there are no changes to current agreements with value-added services partners, and that meetings are planned with those vendors to discuss the impact of the Bell/Microsoft deal. He adds, "Bell Canada will be responsible for Canadian content and its network of partners, while MSN will supply its applications and provide access to its network of partners. This strategic alliance has both organizations contributing their expertise and network of partners to deliver advanced Internet services. We’ll also be driving product innovation in areas such as home networking, mobile computing, security and multimedia messaging."

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