ShopSite in the News
Friday June 29, 8:00 am Eastern Time
Press Release
SOURCE: Open Market, Inc.
Open Market Announces Sale of the ShopSite Product Line To Its Current ShopSite Management Team
Management team that originally developed the widely used ShopSite online store-building software acquires ownership
BURLINGTON, Mass., June 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Market, Inc., a leading provider of content-driven e-business solutions, today announced the sale of its ShopSite product line to the management team that originally created it. Open Market has divested this product line to further focus company resources on its core content management and delivery capability. A new company built around ShopSite, ShopSite, Inc., will continue to support existing and new customers as well as the product's distribution and development. David Hills, former Open Market vice president of development, will become the company's CEO and president.
ShopSite, originally developed by ICentral, Inc., was acquired by Open Market in 1998. Since the acquisition, most of the original ShopSite team has remained with Open Market and has continued to develop and support the ShopSite product line, which is a commerce website building tool focused on small and medium sized businesses. With thousands of licenses worldwide, this simple but powerful online store-building software can establish an e-commerce website in as little as 15 minutes.
"The original design team is buying ShopSite back," said David Hills, CEO and president of ShopSite, Inc. "We know this technology inside and out and we will continue development, sales and, most importantly, support for all existing and new customers. We're extremely excited and look forward to developing this great technology even further!"
"This is just the next step in our plan to intensely focus Open Market on our flagship content management and delivery technology," said Harland LaVigne, CEO and president of Open Market. "We're concentrating on our strengths and we know ShopSite will do well as it always has under the existing team's wing. It's gratifying to sell the product to a group of our own employees who have proven themselves so well."
The new company will be headquartered in Provo, Utah. For more information about ShopSite, Inc. and its products, please visit its website at www.shopsite.com or call (801) 705-4127.
About Open Market
Open Market, Inc. makes content-driven e-business solutions that enable enterprises to better manage interactions with their site visitors, customers, employees, and channels. Leveraging the new Java(TM) 2 Platform Enterprise Edition (J2EE(TM)) standard, the Company's software products are built with Java, JSP and XML and are layered on top of popular application servers like the BEA WebLogic Server, the IBM WebSphere Application Server and the iPlanet Application Server. Open Market's roster of global customers includes publishers and media companies like The McGraw-Hill Companies, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Company; financial services companies like J.P. Morgan Chase, GE Capital and The Hartford Financial Services Group; and manufacturers like 3Com, BASF and Milacron. The company, headquartered in Burlington, Mass., has customers in 42 countries. Open Market's international head office is in the U.K. with additional offices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands and Singapore. Open Market can be reached by calling 1-888-OPEN-MKT (toll-free) or 1-781-359-3000 in the U.S. or 1753-838-000 in the U.K. or by visiting http://www.openmarket.com.
NOTE: The statements contained in this release regarding our Company focus on content management and delivery, the sale of our ShopSite product line to a newly-formed company, ShopSite, Inc. and all other statements that are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All such forward-looking statements are based upon information available to us as of the date hereof, and we disclaim any intention or obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the current expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are set forth under the heading "Certain Factors That May Affect Future Results" in the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2001. These include risks and uncertainties relating to: our history of operating losses, our ability to execute on our revised strategic plan, our ability to effectively restructure our operations, ShopSite's ability to provide maintenance and support to our existing ShopSite customers, continued development and growth of the content management product market, dependence on third party technology, difficulty in predicting quarterly results, development and maintenance of relationships with our service partners, competitive pressures, product development and rapid technological change, litigation and the costs thereof.
Open Market, Catalog Centre, Content Centre, Content Server, Integration Centre, Marketing Studio, Personalization Centre, Satellite Server, Transact, and FutureTense are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Market, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
