SAN FRANCISCO & FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- July 19, 2004 -- Kurant Corporation, a leading provider of e-business software for small and medium-sized businesses, and Hostopia.com, award-winning wholesale provider of turnkey Web, e-mail and e-commerce hosting solutions, today announced an agreement by which Hostopia will resell Kurant's StoreSense e-business solution to its network of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Web Service Providers worldwide.
Hostopia is one of the world's fastest growing private label wholesale Web hosting serving over 270 service providers who, combined have over 125,000 merchants. According to Paul D. Engels, vice president, marketing for Hostopia, "StoreSense is in high demand by our partners because it appeals to novice users and sophisticated e-businesses alike. Unlike other branded solutions we have tested, StoreSense defines Telco-grade reliability and delivers combined business benefits of enhanced revenue flow and margins with reduced support costs and customer appeal for end-users."
Kurant's StoreSense is a four-time winner of PC Magazine's "Editors' Choice." Business pay a monthly recurring fee to use it, and have a choice of four progressively scalable license types: "Starter," "Standard," "Professional" and "Professional Plus." The benefit of a monthly license is constant upgrades for users delivered via a hosted ASP-type model that can be scaled centrally to meet the most demanding merchant needs.
"With 70 percent of small businesses in the U.S. having an online presence, or planning to have one by the end of the year, the market demand for e-business solutions is at an all-time high," said Curtis Pierce, president and CEO of Kurant. "Merchants want a solution that combines ease-of-use with advanced features and scaleable technology. Hostopia has powerful reach into a vast network of service providers who serve end-users and they have the proven high-performance infrastructure and support to ensure optimal market success."
Hostopia is pre-releasing Kurant's StoreSense to selected private label partners in July and launching worldwide on its network in August.
About StoreSense
Kurant StoreSense is a complete suite of powerful e-business tools that are designed to help small businesses get started selling online quickly and easily. StoreSense's rich feature set ranges from simple wizard-driven Web site and e-store capabilities to sophisticated site design tools, advanced commerce functionality and high-end e-business management. In addition, for the first time, smaller merchants can now manage the entire process of posting and selling products on eBay using the intuitive interface they use to manage their online StoreSense stores.
About Hostopia
Hostopia provides private-branded hosting, email and e-commerce solutions to Telco's, ISPs, cable companies, domain registrars, and other Web Service Providers. Hostopia's automated provisioning and support platforms enable service providers to increase their hosting revenues and profits while delivering a superior feature set to their end-user business customers. Hostopia's WebhostOS is a breakthrough technology that creates a single system for managing "UNIX/Windows" applications. Its clustered server environment allows enterprises to benefit from sophisticated hosting features normally associated with high-cost, non-redundant dedicated servers at "shared hosting" prices.
About Kurant
Kurant Corporation provides software that enables small businesses to conduct business online through dynamic, interactive Web sites. StoreSense, our flagship product, is a comprehensive e-commerce platform that allows companies to easily add commerce to an existing Web site or create a sophisticated Web Store including: inventory management, supplier communication and integration with Quickbooks. StoreSense is delivered to small businesses through Kurant's global resellers that include financial service organizations, Web hosting companies and trusted small business partners. Incorporated in 1998, San Francisco-based Kurant is privately held. For more information, contact Kurant at www.kurant.com or 888-463-2696.
