ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 5, 2004--Personal Portals Online, Inc. (http://www.personalportalsonline.com), the Orlando-based software development company and pioneer of the high quality "do-it-yourself" website builder for businesses and consumers, announced today that the acquisition of Zerobrand, Inc. was completed over the holidays however the terms currently remain undisclosed.
This news comes on the heels of the recent announcement by E Com Force Corp. ("E Com") (Pink Sheets:ECFP) on December 22, 2003 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Personal Portals Online, Inc. in a stock exchange transaction. Terms of the exchange call for E Com to acquire all outstanding stock and assume all stock options of Personal Portals Online, Inc. in exchange for shares of E Com Force Corp. common stock. This transaction is scheduled to close within the next 2-3 weeks. E Com said it plans to fully integrate the Personal Portals Online products and brands into its operations immediately. Personal Portals Online, Inc. was established in 2001, founded by a seasoned executive team which pioneered the "do-it-yourself" website builder marketplace with Image Cafe (http://www.imagecafe.com) in 1999, when it was sold to Network Solutions for $25M.
The buy out of Zerobrand strengthens Personal Portal's web hosting activities and fits in well with the new points of presence being established by the company. Personal Portals is currently rolling out 3 new website and portal builders aimed at consumers, web designers and a much anticipated private label version for partnering with online conglomerates who already maintain large communities of users, which are prime targets for buying the product.
Zerobrand, Inc. ("Zerobrand") (http://www.zerobrand.com) specializes in developing and growing the latest breed of Internet service providers and services. As a unique entity, Zerobrand provides their web-hosting customers the opportunity to build their own privately branded hosting company using a simple online control panel, while Zerobrand operates transparently in the background providing all the infrastructure, administration, bandwidth and servers.
"Zerobrand will significantly enhance Personal Portals' capabilities in web hosting and collocation, more importantly will increase our offering to web designers who normally outsource to local hosting companies. Now they become their own hosting company and our large private label clients can maintain their own brand recognition without physically managing the process. This is significant at all levels," said William Mobley, CEO and President of Personal Portals Online, Inc.
Personal Portals Online's integrated platform offers users a broad range of secure and public features that will turn the consumers own personal portal into a complete customized website, community center, shop module, communication resource and life manager. Unlike simplistic homepage builders such as Geocities, AOL's Hometown, and Homestead.com, Personal Portals Online gives users groundbreaking, fully integrated high-tech features without compromising ease of use, or its free, giveaway or promotional price tag. That's free, yet the user must select from required hosting plans ranging from $4.95-$19.95 monthly.
"Zerobrand is a perfect fit to our existing product lines, as well as being highly significant to our long-term goals with national accounts. These prospects will find comfort in the fact that we are managing our own hosting and data center operations versus outsourcing them, more importantly that they too can now remotely manage their IT operations without the costs and overhead currently associated with managing an in-house IT department. Plus there are obvious economic benefits to the company's bottom line when cutting out one of our most highly consumable product vendors," says Mobley.
