Dow Jones, Excite@Home Spin Off Business Portal

Excite@Home’s service portal Work.com got promoted
Tuesday to its own company, which will be jointly owned by Excite@Home and
Dow Jones & Co., with plans to go
public later this year.

Work.com was launched in September on Excite@Home’s (ATHM)
network, and has operated as a comprehensive resource for the small and
medium business-to-business market. It features vertical industry content,
communities and customized business applications.

Under Tuesday’s agreement, Excite@Home and Dow Jones (DJ)
will now each have a 50 percent joint ownership stake in Work.com and equal
representation on its board of directors. The partners anticipate equally
offering a minority of the shares to the public through an initial public
offering later this year, business and market conditions permitting.

Dow Jones will integrate its proprietary content from the Wall Street Journal and its dowjones.com business portal into
Work.com. The
combination will provide business professionals with pertinent information
they need to stay informed and competitive
within their industry, and with applications and tools they need to
manage their businesses, said George Bell,
president and chief executive officer of Excite@Home.

“This is an excellent example of how we can come together with an
established media company to create new value,” said Bell.


“The combined
assets of Excite@Home
and Dow Jones position this start-up to quickly become the market
leader. The increased depth of content from Dow Jones will be a
strong addition to Excite.com’s Business Channel.”

The combined Work.com site is set to launch
later this year. A CEO of Work.com will be named soon; Ezra Palmer,
editorial director of dowjones.com, was named Work.com’s
editor-in-chief.

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