ESCALATE LAUNCHES BREAKTHROUGH IN E-COMMERCE

First E-commerce Service Provider (ESP) Announces Marquee Customers Including Egreetings Network and Quokka Sports

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif.— December 6, 1999 —Escalate, Inc., the first E-commerce Service Provider (ESP), launched at an exclusive dinner with James Barksdale, Mitch Kapor and 40 top tier press and analysts late last week. The company announced the availability of the Escalate Commerce Network, a universal e-commerce network that provides an end-to-end e-commerce management solution for companies that are looking to add e-commerce to their businesses—including high traffic Internet sites, retailers, cataloguers, and sites with existing e-commerce capabilities.

"The days of building e-commerce from scratch are over," said Thomas P. Berquist, vice president, investment research at Goldman, Sachs & Co. "Time to market and brand building are more important than running e-commerce in-house. We believe Escalate is strongly positioned to enable organizations to outsource high-quality, high-traffic e-commerce operations."

By subscribing to the Escalate Commerce Network, Egreetings Network, Quokka Sports, and Turoturo.com were able to launch sophisticated and robust e-commerce offerings in a few weeks, significantly faster than if they had built these capabilities in-house. Supported by a scalable and redundant hardware and software infrastructure hosted at Escalate's data centers, the Escalate Commerce Network is designed to support millions of transactions generated from thousands of businesses. It is a single integrated solution with unique features such as a patent-pending contextual selling engine and an interactive point of sale system.

The Escalate Commerce Network enables businesses to retain control of their brand and customer experience, while outsourcing the technology. "A reliable e-commerce solution is critical to helping us deliver the most complete, immersive experience possible to our audience. Escalate took us across the finish line in a matter of weeks, with far less pain and investment than an in-house effort. It's our store—Escalate stocks it and powers it invisibly," said Jay Thomas, vice president of e-commerce at Quokka Sports.

"Buying software and building e-commerce applications will become a minority practice within three years; the majority of the e-business transactions and processes will be handled by ESPs," stated Keng Lim, president and chief executive officer of Escalate. "Escalate has the first-mover advantage in the ESP market."

"There is a clear need for the Escalate Commerce Network," said James Barksdale, managing partner of The Barksdale Group. "ESPs will radically increase the accessibility and economics of e-commerce. Escalate is the leader in this new category."

About Escalate

Escalate, Inc. will significantly change the way all e-businesses establish and innovate their ongoing e-commerce operations. As the first e-commerce service provider (ESP), Escalate radically changes the speed, accessibility, and economies of delivering high-impact e-commerce. Through its flagship e-commerce network, the Escalate Commerce Network, Escalate provides an end-to-end e-commerce management system with a vast product catalog, an integrated supplier network, and a high-quality service provider network all in a single integrated solution. By subscribing to the Escalate Commerce Network, companies that are looking to add e-commerce to their businesses—including high traffic Internet sites, retailers, cataloguers, and sites with existing e-commerce capabilities—will be able to deploy high-impact e-commerce faster and with less investment than was previously possible.

Representative Escalate customers include such high profile e-businesses as Egreetings and Quokka Sports. A privately held company with over 100 employees, Escalate has raised more than $30 million in working capital from leading venture capital firms including Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and the Barksdale Group. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, Escalate serves Europe and Asia via offices in Paris and Tokyo. For more information visit Escalate's website at http://www.escalate.com.

###

Escalate™ and Escalate to Market™ are trademarks of Escalate, Inc. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Lance Mercereau
Burson-Marsteller
415.591.4000
lance_mercereau@sfo.bm.com

Back to Press Homepage

[ T O P ]