EXHIBIT 99.4
BRIGHT STATION ANNOUNCES A SERIES OF TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING AGREEMENTS WITH
INTEL CORPORATION
Bright Station wins Intel Contracts and Intel Commits to
R&D Activity and Sales Cooperation Across All Bright Station Business Units
London, England - 10th January 2001 - Bright Station plc (LSE: BSN, NASDAQ:
BSTN) (www.brightstation.com), a provider of market-leading Internet and
eCommerce solutions, today announced a series of technology and marketing
agreements with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) (www.intel.com), the world's
largest chip maker and a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and
communications products, which will benefit both businesses across several areas
and has already resulted in tangible business gains.
Highlights of the relationship:
Smartlogik
o Smartlogik's Knowledge Management solution piloted in Intel's Northern
European operations with a view to worldwide rollout
o Intel selects Smartlogik to be demonstrated in Intel Solution Centres
as an example of a leading edge Knowledge Management solution
o Intel commits engineering resources to optimise the Smartlogik
application suite for current and future 32 bit processors and the
Intel(R) Itanium(TM) processor
Sparza
o Sparza and Intel Online Services to jointly market scaleable hosted
eCommerce solutions
o Absorption of Boo.com Technology assets into Sparza provide unique
pan-European offering
o Hosted applications market expected to grow to $11.3 billion by 2003
with Europe accounting for 30% (Source: Forrester Research)
WebTop
o WebTop reduces cost and delivers five fold increase in retrieval speed
across over half a billion web pages by switching to Intel Architecture
Bright Station Corporate
o Bright Station Symphony Ltd. established to manage the relationship
with Intel Corporation and other, cross-subsidiary opportunities
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are delighted to have concluded this important series of agreements with
Intel. They are a significant endorsement of our technologies and businesses,"
commented Dan Wagner, CEO of Bright Station. "We are excited about the improved
performance our software will deliver to our customers based on Intel-based
servers. By collaborating with Intel, we can ensure even better performance,
cost effectiveness and scalability on Intel platforms. These agreements
obviously have major implications for the group as a whole, and we are delighted
to be entering the New Year with this solid relationship in place."
Sean Maloney, Intel Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group with
Worldwide responsibility said:- "Bright Station's range of products and
services are at the heart of e-business. Powered by Intel-based servers, Bright
Station offers customers more powerful e-business solutions with the scale and
flexibility to meet the demands of today's unpredictable Internet economy."
John Woodget, Director of Northern Europe, Intel added "These agreements are
important because of the broad nature of the relationship extending across many
areas of Intel and all of Bright Station's business units."
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commentary follows on each initiative:
Smartlogik (www.smartlogik.com) Bright Station's Internet infrastructure
solutions
1. Intel selects Smartlogik to be demonstrated in Intel Solution Centres as an
example of a leading edge Knowledge Management solution
The companies will jointly develop and market cost effective,
enterprise-class solutions built on Smartlogik's suite of Knowledge
Management applications and Intel-based servers.
The goal is to provide Intel customers with solutions that offer a better
price/performance ratio than comparable offerings running on other
processor architectures. To that end, Intel will commit substantial
marketing resources toward co-marketing programs and expanded field sales
engagement.
2. Intel has committed engineering resources to optimise Smartlogik's
application suite for Intel(R) Itanium(TM) processor
Intel will place Smartlogik's suite of applications in Intel Solution
Centers, with the goal of further optimising Smartlogik applications for
Intel's current and future 32-bit processors. In addition, Intel Solution
Centers will work with Smartlogik to deploy its suite of Knowledge
Management applications on Intel-based solutions. Smartlogik will develop
and release a version of MuscatSearch and MuscatStructure for Intel(R)
Itanium(TM) processor. The companies will provide joint training and
customer support initiatives designed to ensure easy, cost-effective
deployment.
"We expect to prove very visibly that Smartlogik's Knowledge Management
applications, powered by Intel-based servers, offer customers an excellent
solution with the scale and flexibility to meet the demands of today's
ever-changing Internet economy." stated Richard Curran, Intel's Manager
solutions enabling and services, E-business and communications solutions
group, EMEA
3. Smartlogik's Knowledge Management solution piloted in Intel's Northern
European operations with a view to worldwide rollout
Initially, the solution will be piloted by Intel's Northern European sales
division and subject to successful trials it is intended that it will be
rolled out worldwide thereafter.
Smartlogik will provide its software solutions, including MuscatStructure
and MuscatDiscovery, which will form part of Intel's intranet allowing
management
and salespeople to easily and quickly retrieve relevant information on
markets and customers from internal archives and repositories.
"I have often been frustrated when trying to quickly find information which
I know we have somewhere in our corporate intranet,"' said John Woodget,
Intel's Director for Northern Europe. "Smartlogik's suite of products
facilitates efficient and comprehensive retrieval of data within our
network - allowing me and my colleagues to be more productive."
Sparza (www.sparza.com)
- ------- --------------
1. Sparza and Intel Online Services to jointly market scaleable, hosted
eCommerce solutions worldwide
Intel Online Services, Inc. (IOS), the Internet application-hosting
subsidiary of Intel Corporation, and Sparza, the hosted eCommerce solutions
subsidiary of Bright Station plc, will market their offerings to major
retailers and manufacturers worldwide.
The hosted Applications market is expected to grow to $11.3 billion by 2003
(Forrester Research) with Europe accounting for approximately 30%. As
retailers and manufacturers appreciate the cost-effectiveness of renting
their eCommerce infrastructures rather than buying and building them from
scratch, Sparza will be able to offer a total solution to this vastly
expanding market.
o Sparza provides a scaleable architecture for delivering eCommerce
services throughout Europe and the world, and total integration with
existing fulfilment, warehousing and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
systems;
o IOS provides the complete environment and support services to deliver
the Sparza solution on a global basis.
"We are have a global network of Internet data centers with world class
eBusiness outsourcing capabilities," said Richard Dracott, Director of
Marketing and Services, EMEA, Intel Online Services. "Through our UK data
center, Sparza is able to offer multi-lingual, multi-currency capabilities
that are critical for Pan European or global eCommerce".
Sparza provides a unique and much needed, sophisticated, one-stop shop
solution for the existing 'bricks and mortar' retailers and manufacturers.
The integration of the technology assets of Boo.com has allowed Sparza to
offer a global solution that is unique. This market is poised for enormous
growth and
Sparza's 'best of breed' technology solution will allow Sparza and Intel to
jointly reap its considerable benefits.
WebTop (www.webtop.com)
1. WebTop reduces cost and delivers five fold increase in retrieval speed
across over half a billion web pages by switching to Intel Architecture
WebTop, the next generation search engine, is now leveraging its newly developed
distributed search technology together with Intel's clustering Architecture
which has improved speed of retrieval by over 500%. In addition, WebTop has been
able to significantly reduce its overall cost of operations as a result of using
the cost-effective, highly scalable Intel-based server platforms.
"These significant improvements in retrieval speed have allowed us to win key
customers such as PC World and ZD Net" Said Andy Mitchell, CEO of WebTop "and we
have a healthy pipeline of similar prospects who are equally impressed with our
sub second response to queries"
Bright Station Corporate
1. Bright Station Symphony Ltd. established to manage cross-subsidiary
opportunities
Bright Station has established a new subsidiary business specifically to
coordinate opportunities arising out of this agreement, and any other
cross-company alliances, to ensure effective leverage of partnership activities.
- ENDS -
For further information, please contact:
Nick Chaloner
Head of Corporate Communications
Bright Station plc +44 (0)20 7930 6900
nickchaloner@brightstation.com
John Olsen / Nick Lockwood
Hogarth Partnership +44 (0)20 7357 9477
nicklockwood@hogarthpr.co.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
- ----------------
Bright Station plc
Bright Station plc is a leading creator of innovative Internet technologies
and technology-driven businesses. It is comprised of the following:
Smartlogik - Creates corporate efficiencies through its superior knowledge
management solutions. Smartlogik solutions combine proprietary,
technologies that enable user-friendly searching, indexing and
categorization of unstructured information, and business-friendly
implementation services to ensure that every corporation realizes maximum
benefit from the application.
Sparza - An eCommerce ASP providing online retailers with state-of-the-art
Internet shopping solutions at a fraction of the cost. By outsourcing their
entire web store operations to Sparza, retailers can remove eCommerce from
the balance sheet and concentrate on the value-adding parts of the business
such as customer service, product development and marketing.
WebTop - The next generation search services company having one of the
largest web indexes worldwide, with over 500 million web pages catalogued
and organized into information zones to deliver context specific and
accurate retrieval on the web.
Officeshopper - The Internet procurement and business supplies vendor.
Bright Station Ventures - responsible for nurturing, and investing in,
promising technology and Internet start-up businesses leveraging Bright
Station's world-class technology assets and expertise.
Intel Corporation
Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of
computer, networking and communications products. Additional information is
available at http://www.intel.com/pressroom