Pearson Education and Audible Announce Strategic Partnership to Bring

Pearson Education and Audible Announce Strategic Partnership to Bring Just-in-Time Learning to the Ears of College Students

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    UPPER SADDLE RIVER & WAYNE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2005--

    Companies Will Create and Co-Market Digital Audio Study Guides for Playback On Apple(R) iPods(R), PDAs, and Other AudibleReady(R) Devices

    Pearson Higher Education, part of Pearson plc (LSE: PSON; NYSE: PSO), and Audible, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBL) today announced a strategic alliance to deliver innovative audio learning products to the higher education market. The partnership brings together Pearson, the global leader in educational publishing and the market share leader in the $6 billion higher education market, and Audible, Inc.(R), the company that has defined and leads the spoken-word digital audio download category.
    The audio products developed by the companies will be distributed by Audible.com(R) and available for download to more than 130 AudibleReady(R) digital audio devices, including iPods(R), other MP3 players, PDA's, and smart wireless devices gaining such broad consumer acceptance, particularly on campuses.
    This agreement emphasizes Pearson's strong focus on customizing learning tools to new technology and providing more choice and value options for students. Audible will utilize its original audio production capacity to create and make available Pearson Higher Education study guides in downloadable audio format.
    The companies expect the first exclusive audio studio guide products to be available for download for the 2005-2006 academic year. Pearson Education and Audible will also create and co-market educational audio products for the general consumer, beginning in 2005.
    "This landscape-shifting relationship opens up a whole new channel of content delivery choices for students at a price students, and their parents, will appreciate," commented Will Ethridge, chief executive officer of Pearson Higher Education, International, and Professional Publishing. "This strategic relationship brings together Pearson's market-leadership, years of research in performance-based learning, and the largest and most successful higher education sales force in the world, with Audible's industry-leading spoken word audio download capability and Audible's distribution partners including Apple(R) iTunes(R) and Amazon.com."
    "We recently formed Audible Education to create and distribute educational digital audio to scholastic, professional, and general learners of all ages," said Donald Katz, Audible's chairman and chief executive. "From the many hundreds of thousands of Audible.com(R) customers currently using our premium audio programming to learn and become more successful, Audible has become a powerful tool for productivity and learning. This strategic relationship with Pearson couldn't be more appropriate to a mission our companies will now share. We believe this will be a mutually profitable and culturally meaningful partnership in every way."
    Ethridge added, "There is compelling research that identifies 30% of our population as auditory learners. By coupling this research with the growing popularity of downloadable audio, we believe these study guides can make a significant difference in student performance by accommodating diverse learning and life styles. Students today want the option to be untethered from traditional modes of learning. This product line fills a much-needed gap in learning content for a mobile and multitasking generation."

    ABOUT PEARSON EDUCATION

    Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson Education (www.pearsoned.com) is the global leader in educational publishing, providing research-based print and digital programs to help students of all ages learn at their own pace, in their own way. While virtually all students in America learn from a Pearson program at some point in their educational career, about three million college students are currently pursuing their courses online using Pearson Higher Education's products. Nearly 25,000 schools use Pearson technology to help instruct preK-12 students and manage how they are doing. Pearson provides schools customizable services to create, deliver, score and report educational assessments, both in print and online. The company is home to such renowned publishing brands as Pearson Prentice Hall, Pearson Longman, Pearson Scott Foresman, Pearson Early Learning, Pearson Learning Group, Pearson Digital Learning, and Pearson Addison Wesley. Pearson Education is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the international media company. In addition to Pearson Education, Pearson's primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group.

    ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.

    Audible(R) (www.audible.com(R)) is the Internet's leading premium spoken word audio source. Content from Audible is downloaded and played back on personal computers, CDs, or AudibleReady(R) computer-based mobile devices. Audible has more than 70,000 hours of audio programs from more than 200 content partners that include leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible.com is Amazon.com's and the Apple(R) iTunes(R) Music Store's pre-eminent provider of spoken word products for downloading or streaming via the Web. Additionally, the Company is strategically aligned with Random House, Inc. in the first-ever imprint to produce spoken word content specifically suited for digital distribution, Random House Audible. Among the Company's key business relationships are Apple(R) Corp., Creative Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company, Microsoft(R) Corporation, palmOne, Inc., PhatNoise, Inc., Rio Audio, Sony Electronics, Texas Instruments Inc., and VoiceAge Corporation.

    Audible, www.audible.com, AudibleListener, and AudibleReady are registered trademarks of Audible, Inc. and all are part of the family of Audible, Inc. trademarks.

    Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

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CONTACT: Pearson Education Wendy Spiegel, 800-745-8489 Fax: 212-782-3479 communications@pearsoned.com or Audible, Inc. Dave Joseph, 973-837-2824 djoseph@audible.com

KEYWORD: NEW JERSEY INDUSTRY KEYWORD: PUBLISHING EDUCATION NETWORKING INTERNET E-COMMERCE PRODUCT MARKETING AGREEMENTS PHOTO PHOTOWIRE SOURCE: Pearson Education and Audible, Inc. PHOTO: 45509

Copyright Business Wire 2005