e.Digital Corporation (fka EDIG)

[sricket]

By The Associated Press
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030210&Category=APF&ArtNo=302101049&am...

SAN FRANCISCO
Online music service pressplay announced Monday it had reached deals to distribute music from several leading independent record labels, including Sub Pop and DreamWorks.

The deal brings a host of well-known artists to pressplay, such as Nirvana and Frank Zappa, and expands the selections from the subscription music service to more than 250,000 songs.

Pressplay also reached a deal to distribute music for the independent labels Palm, Ubiquity, Rykodisc/Ryko Label Group, important additions to the service already heavy with a mainstay of popular music, said pressplay CEO Mike Bebel.

Pressplay, while keeping the number of subscribers close to its vest, said 60 percent of the people who have tried the free trial service have signed up for the paid version that costs $9.95 to $17.95 a month.

Pressplay, the joint venture of Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, was launched in 2001 as the major labels sought a legal alternative to satisfy consumer hunger for music online.

But its illegal predecessor, Napster, drew tens of millions of users with free song-sharing and pressplay's subscriber base, by expert accounts, remains dwarfed by users of other free file-sharing services that sprang up in Napster's wake.

---

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - Johnson & Johnson, the health-care giant the public knows for its baby, skin and wound-care products, is boosting its biotech might with the acquisition of Scios Inc. in a $2.4 billion cash-for-stock deal announced Monday.

Buying Scios, a 22-year-old biotech company with one product on the market, gives Johnson & Johnson a new, likely lucrative heart drug and a possible future blockbuster, while Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Scios should get sales and research support that will help it grow quickly, analysts say.

The deal, expected to close in this year's second quarter, would be the third acquisition of a biotechnology company in less than four years for the New Brunswick-based maker of No More Tears shampoo and Band-Aids.

It would give Johnson & Johnson biotech sales approaching those of industry leader Amgen Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif. - about $5 billion last year, said Glenn Reicin, hospital supply analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Under terms of the acquisition agreement, Scios shareholders will receive $45 for each outstanding share - a 30 percent premium over the trading level Thursday, before talks between the two companies were reported. Scios will retain its name, management team and other resources.

In trading Monday, Scios shares rose $1.72, or 4.1 percent, to close Monday at $43.92 on the Nasdaq stock market, adding to a 22 percent gain Friday when the talks were first reported. Johnson & Johnson shares rose 20 cents to $52.04 on the New York Stock Exchange.

---

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore predicted Monday that the semiconductor industry will maintain its torrid development pace for at least another decade, regardless of normal fluctuations in the economy.

Intel's chairman emeritus is best known as the father of "Moore's Law," his 1965 theory that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every year or two. Originally seen as little more than an optimistic speculation in an obscure trade publication, Moore's prediction became the guiding principle of the semiconductor industry in the 1970s, and it explained the sector's gangbuster growth in the '80s and '90s.

Moore, who co-founded Santa Clara-based Intel Corp. in 1968 and served as chief executive from 1979 to 1987, said Monday that growth in the semiconductor industry would equal the growth in the world's gross domestic product by 2017 if the industry continued its scorching pace. He said he saw "no apparent roadblocks" for Moore's Law for at least another decade.