FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Excite@Home Expands Retail Distribution of @Home Service with Major Retail Chains Continued retail strategy brings the @Home experience directly to the consumer REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - October 19, 1999 - Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM), a global media company, today announced agreements with leaders in the consumer electronic and office products retail markets to offer the @Home service directly to the consumer in retail stores. The Good Guys!, a premier consumer electronics retailer, and Office Depot, the world's largest office product superstore chain, will offer Excite@Home's high-speed cable Internet service @Home directly to their customers as part of their participation in Excite@Home's Retail Merchandising Program. Consumers, at participating stores, can demo the @Home service, talk to a cable representative, set up an installation time and purchase the necessary pre-installation kit in a single visit. The retail program enables the stores to merchandise Excite@Home's high-speed Internet service through selected retail locations in markets serviced by Excite@Home. Expanding further into consumer electronic and superstore office products markets, these new partnerships continue Excite@Home's aggressive retail distribution marketing strategy. The @Home Retail Merchandising Program is currently established in over 140 other retail outlets and expects to be in more than 250 stores in all markets by the end of the year. "We're making it even easier for the consumer to get the @Home service," said Dean Gilbert, Senior VP & General Manager, Excite@Home Subscriber Networks Division. "We've learned a great deal about selling @Home subscriptions at retail over this last year and we're pleased to be expanding our program with such prominent retailers in their markets. "Our retail strategy is a cornerstone of our distribution efforts to meet the large demand for the @Home service. Bringing it directly to the consumer is what they have asked for and is the next step in moving towards self-installation." Consumers Can Now Get @Home on the Spot Consumers who walk into participating stores, can demo the @Home service, talk to a cable representative, set up an installation time and purchase the necessary pre-installation kit in a single visit. In many areas where the @Home service is available, consumers will be able to go to their local consumer electronic and office products stores to try Excite@Home's high-speed Internet service. An Excite@Home hot-line phone will instantly connect the consumer to a cable company representative who will answer any questions for the customer, sign them up, and arrange for an installation time. The customer can then purchase the @Home Cable Internet Pre-installation Kit and receive coupons worth up to $90 in savings on their set-up costs. The kit also features the @Home Preview CD-ROM and the @Home Welcome Guide which provides consumers a preview of the @Home service even before they are completely wired. The suggested retail price for the @Home Cable Internet Pre-Installation Kit is $39.95. The merchandising system will be offering a series of retail promotions between now and the end of the year and will include rebates on cable modems. Customers may be able to purchase their cable modems from many of these stores this holiday season. "Our retail expansion efforts with @Home opening consumer electronics and office product channels will help to accelerate subscriber growth as more consumers will be able to experience the product before purchasing, while gaining valuable discounts on their start-up costs," said Carl Vogel, executive vice president and COO, ATT Data Services. "We welcome our new partnerships with our new retailers." About The Good Guys! The Good Guys! is a leading specialty retailer of consumer entertainment electronics, operating a total of 79 stores in California, Washington, Oregon and Nevada, and marketing a broad range of high quality, name brand products. For more information on The Good Guys!, including news releases, product information and store locations, visit www.thegoodguys.com. About Office Depot Office Depot Inc. is the worlds largest seller of office products now with 821 stores opened throughout the US Canada, France and Japan. The company also operates a nationwide business to business delivery network and an award winning public Website at www.officedepot.com About Excite@Home Excite@Home (Nasdaq: ATHM) is a global media company based in Redwood City, Calif. Through the company's narrowband portal, Excite (www.excite.com), and broadband services @Home and @Work, the company uniquely offers consumers content and interactive services across both narrowband and broadband. The rich media advertising and database marketing solutions of Enliven (www.enliven.com) and MatchLogic (www.matchlogic.com) offer advertisers highly targeted interactive marketing and reporting services across all platforms of delivery. Leveraging the high-speed, always-on attributes of cable, Excite@Home empowers unique multimedia applications that go beyond current Web experiences. The company will combine the Excite brand -- one of the best-known names on the Internet with 70 percent recognition among Web users -- with the @Home broadband service's broad distribution, a worldwide footprint of 67 million cable homes, to deliver on its vision of "All Band, All Device, All the Time." For more investor information about Excite@Home, please call our stockholder services hotline at 1.888.924.9248.
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Excite@Home, @Home, and the @ logo are trademarks of the AtHome Corporation and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other brands and products are trademarks of their respective companies. Brand recognition statistics quoted are from Frank N. Magid and Associates, Inc. (1/99).