MSN Hebrew Portal

Internet Gold, an Internet service provider in Israel, said it has reached a preliminary accord with Microsoft Corp. to jointly establish a Hebrew language Web portal called MSN Israel. Internet Gold’s stock nearly doubled on the news, closing up $13.88 at $28.13 on Nasdaq. MSN Israel, which is scheduled to be running by January, would offer Hebrew-reading users such features of Microsoft’s MSN Web services as news, Hotmail free e-mail, instant messaging, a search engine, business services and e-commerce services, Internet Gold said. Internet Gold would hold 50.1% of the company, and Microsoft would hold 49.9%. Microsoft would provide the technology and MSN distribution rights.