Exhibit A
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ROWECOM AND NEWSEDGE END ACQUISITION AGREEMENT;
MOVE AHEAD WITH PARTNERSHIP
WESTWOOD, Mass. and BURLINGTON, Mass.--(March 7, 2000) RoweCom Inc. (Nasdaq:
ROWE) and NewsEdge Corporation (Nasdaq: NEWZ), today jointly announced that they
have agreed by mutual consent to terminate their acquisition agreement. Under
the agreement, which was announced on December 7, 1999, RoweCom would have
acquired NewsEdge Corporation in a stock transaction. The companies have chosen
instead to move forward with a partnership that will enable the services of both
companies to be integrated in ways that benefit their customers.
. RoweCom intends to offer NewsEdge services to its clients to provide timely
and customized business, technical and political news from hundreds of
sources, contextually organized into NewsEdge Review(TM) topics.
. Similarly, links embedded within NewsEdge stories would provide access to
related kStore offerings from over 200,000 magazines and journals; 5,300
electronic journals; 4,000 market research reports and 12 million article
abstracts and citations from RoweCom's vast catalog; as well as millions of
books via RoweCom partners barnesandnoble.com and Books24x7.com.
The partnership is expected to financially benefit RoweCom and NewsEdge in two
ways. First, by making both companies' services available to one another's
client base, RoweCom and NewsEdge tap new distribution channels, expanding their
respective potential user bases. Second, the addition of new services is
expected to increase purchasing among existing clients with little incremental
cost to the companies.
ABOUT ROWECOM
A first mover in business-to-business e-commerce, RoweCom Inc. develops and
operates Web-based services that enable organizations to manage the acquisition
of knowledge resources such as magazines, newspapers, journals and books.
RoweCom's flagship services, Knowledge Store (kStore) and Knowledge Library
(kLibrary), allow organizations to order, pay for and manage over 200,000 titles
online as well as millions of discounted books via RoweCom partner
barnesandnoble.com. With clients ranging from Fortune 1000 companies to
academic libraries, RoweCom serves organizations with intensive knowledge
requirements and high-volume purchases. Faxon, a long-established leader in
academic information services, joined RoweCom in October 1999 to offer expanded
Internet and e-commerce tools as well as new levels of control, convenience, and
cost-savings to their clients. Faxon, RoweCom Academic and Biomedical Services,
continues its role as an industry leader providing traditional print and e-
journal services; budgeting and collection development solutions; high-quality
personal service; and cutting-edge web-based services including Subscription
Depot, License Depot, and Information Quest (IQ). The publicly held company
(Nasdaq: ROWE) is headquartered in Westwood, Mass. and has offices in North
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America, Europe and Australia as well as a presence
in South America, Japan and the Middle East. Visit the RoweCom Website at
http://www.rowe.com.
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ABOUT NEWSEDGE CORPORATION
NewsEdge Corporation (Nasdaq: NEWZ) is the leader in global news and current
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awareness solutions for business. The Company's mission is to make news
valuable for business by helping people find the most important, relevant
stories from an overwhelming volume of daily news and enabling them to act on
the most current information possible. NewsEdge's Enterprise unit serves
approximately 1,400 organizations, including 43 of Business Week's 50 largest
global companies with award-winning news and information solutions including
NewsEdge Insight(TM), NewsEdge Live(TM), and NewsEdge Review(TM) topics.
NewsEdge is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts with sales offices and
distributors throughout North America, South America, Europe, Japan and the
Middle East. For more information about NewsEdge Corporation, please visit the
company's Web site at http://www.newsedge.com.
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Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in
this news release may contain forward-looking statements made under the safe
harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All
forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. RoweCom's or
NewsEdge's actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in
the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a difference
include, but are not limited to, those discussed in each company's respective
SEC filings.
ROWECOM CONTACT NEWSEDGE CONTACT
Paul Burmeister Ron Benanto
RoweCom Inc. NewsEdge Corporation
(617) 497-5800 (781) 229-3000
pburmeister@rowe.com ron.benanto@newsedge.com
ROWECOM INVESTOR CONTACT ROWECOM MEDIA CONTACT
Gene Marbach Joanne Gallucci
Makovsky & Co Makovsky & Co
(212) 508-9645 (212) 508-9648
Emarbach@makovsky.com Jgallucci@makovsky.com