Beam International Limited today announced that its multimedia division, Smarty Pants Publishing, had signed a 3 year multi-million dollar distribution agreement with Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd for its Languages For Kids range of educational multimedia titles.
Under  the agreement, Scholastic would be responsible for distribution of the CD-ROM series to the retail trade, schools and through the Scholastic book clubs. The initial four titles in the series are expected to be released in October of this year, with the remaining 6 titles to be released in time for the beginning of the Australian school year in February 1998.
"We are absolutely delighted to be working with Scholastic, who are clearly the leaders in Australia for educational materials", commented Ms. Rebecca Chapman, General Manager of the Smarty Pants Publishing division of Beam International Limited.
The series of 11 different products is designed to teach languages to primary school students, and was developed with the assistance of the Australian Multimedia Enterprise Ltd.
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The first title in the series, "Michio Teaches Japanese" was a winner of the 1997 ATOM Australian Multimedia Awards and a finalist in the Canadian Digital Media Awards held earlier this year in Toronto.
"This confirms our belief in the educational multimedia sector, and this level of commitment should augur well for similar distribution arrangements internationally. We believe that educational multimedia publishing will continue to be an important part of Beam International and will grow to contribute about 15% of the Company's sales and profits", commented Mr. Alfred Milgrom, Chairman of Beam International Limited.
Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd is a subsidiary of Scholastic International, Inc., the world's leading distributor and republisher of educational books, materials and software dedicated to interactive learning. Scholastic have offices in Australia, UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico and France. More information about Scholastic and its products can be found on the Internet at http://www.scholastic.com.au
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