AOL, Netscape Strengthen Portals

In a harbinger of the megaportal to come, Netscape and America Online are moving to bolster their respective portal sites this week. Netscape will launch Wednesday a consumer finance channel on its Netcenter portal. Likely the piece of Netscape most coveted by AOL -- whose acquisition of Netscape is still pending - Netcenter_s new Personal Finance channel will be integrated with data feeds from financial-services providers such as Morningstar. Users will be able to access stock quotes in real time, minus the standard 20-minute delay, daily mutual fund updates, and other information resources. Netscape, based in Mountain View, Calif., has cut deals with Morningstar for mutual fund updates and analysis; Standard &Poor_s Personal Wealth for market and stock news; Thomson Investors Network for quotes; the Motley Fool for educational information about investing; and with Reuters Group for business and market news. Push-technology vendor Tibco Software will provide content-integration services for the new channel. A second addition to Netcenter is the Investing subchannel. Netscape said it plans to add subchannels focusing on tax, online banking, mortgages, insurance, and retirement in the next few months.