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INTERVU Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Wednesday teamed to each invest $5 million in DiscoverMusic.com, a company which provides music samples to several leading online retailers.

DiscoverMusic.com offers a database of more than 1.2 million samples from more than 200,000 albums. The company delivers approximately 50 million audio streams per month for major music retailers such as Amazon.com (AMZN), barnesandnoble.com (BNBN), Borders Inc., CDNOW (CDNW) and Tower Records.

Under the agreement, INTERVU will become DiscoverMusic.com's exclusive streaming media provider, including music download distribution services. The Microsoft Windows Media platform, along with INTERVU's patented streaming media network, will be integral to DiscoverMusic.com's music distribution service for leading music retailers and record labels. As part of this transaction, DiscoverMusic.com's Internet music retailer base will receive access to the open Windows Media platform. INTERVU and Microsoft will each acquire $5 million of DiscoverMusic.com's convertible preferred stock.

"With Windows Media, Microsoft delivers a proven technology platform that enables digital music distribution," said Will Poole, general manager of Microsoft's streaming media division. "These three companies together offer an unmatched set of services upon which music retailers can build their e-commerce business."

In addition to the popular Windows Media platform, DiscoverMusic.com will seamlessly integrate INTERVU's audio and video distribution services into its Internet music retailer service offering. INTERVU's audio distribution services are based on the company's patented network, which offers tremendous capacity to scale upon demand. The distributed architecture is essential to support DiscoverMusic.com as its music distribution demand grows.

"With nearly 20 percent of our revenue currently being derived from the digital distribution of music, we believe that this space is poised for major growth," said Harry Gruber, INTERVU chairman and chief executive officer. "Our investment in DiscoverMusic.com secures an important channel partner for INTERVU in one of the potentially largest digital audio-video distribution markets on the Internet."

"The combination of Microsoft's technology and INTERVU's world-class network will provide a scalable and high-quality delivery solution to our retailers and record labels, where scale and quality count," said David Lambert, president and chief executive officer of DiscoverMusic.com. "The investments by Microsoft and INTERVU will enable us to significantly enhance our music sampling service for Internet music retailers. We are pleased that Microsoft and INTERVU have demonstrated a strong interest in our services and consider this round of financing to be another major milestone for the company."