The Walt Disney Company has joined with Microsoft to launch a dial-up Internet access service called Disney on MSN. The service, which was announced at the MSN 8 launch on Oct. 24, will use the new MSN 8 client and related services, such as parental controls, and will feature age-appropriate home pages with Disney content. Subscribers will pay US$21.95 per month (the same price as dial-up MSN Internet Access) and will also receive one-year subscriptions to Disney Blast, an online content service for children that usually costs US$50 a year, and Disney Adventures, a print publication that costs US$35 a year. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The co-branded ISP builds on an alliance between the two companies that began in Sept. 2001, when Disney's ESPN.com sports site became part of MSN. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hinted during the MSN 8 launch event that Microsoft might eventually turn to Disney for other types of content, such as news (Disney owns ABC News) and movies, explaining "we'll have a lot of partnerships with leaders in the content area…. We understand that we are not a media company and so this partnership approach really gives us the best of both worlds." For more background on MSN 8, see "MSN Refocuses on Client Software" on page 24 of the Sept. 2002 Update. The sign-up page for Disney on MSN is http://register.go.com/disneymsn/ss/indexhome.