Sumitomo Ties Up With RealNetworks For Japan Music Portal

One of Japan's largest trading companies,
Sumitomo Corp. [TOKYO:8053], is to team up with streaming
media company RealNetworks Inc. [NASDAQ:RNWK] to develop
an online music portal for Japanese Internet users.

The two companies will jointly establish an affiliated company to
manage the site, which will be go live in February, at
http://www.jukebox.ne.jp/pm/ . It will contain music and artist
information like artist fan clubs, song lyrics, album art, music
rankings and concert dates.

Sumitomo is involved in a number of Japanese Internet ventures,
including broadband network AtHome Japan, Cross Beam
Networks Japan and portal venture Lycos Japan. The company
is expected to drive traffic to the new music portal from its other
Web properties.

Reported By Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com