Trans World Entertainment Corp. has entered into a technology, marketing and business alliance with Microsoft Corp., Redmond, WA, to enhance the shopping experience for visitors to its FYE music and video mall stores nationwide and its fye.com site.
FYE, Albany, NY, is the nation's No. 1 mall retailer of music and video products. The company will incorporate Microsoft's .NET, Windows Media technology and Windows XP operating system into its services.
As part of its eWorks program, FYE will display more than 25,000 Windows XP-based listening and viewing stations and kiosks in its 700 stores. Windows Media will help provide the audio and video samplings.
The eWorks effort will include Microsoft's .NET Passport authentication, single sign-in service and .NET My Services personalized recommendations for participating customers.
As a quid pro quo, FYE becomes the main online music and video retailer on MSN Shopping. It also will be the music partner for Windows XP, Microsoft's new operating system.
