America Online and e-SIM Team To Offer Consumers Innovative Online Shopping Experience; e-SIM to Offer UniqueInteractive Product Simulations
September 8, 1999 07:33 AM
DULLES, Va. and PASADENA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 1999--Imagine being able to try a new product - say a new cellular phone that you are considering buying - from the comforts of your home or office.
America Online Inc., AOL , the world's leading interactive services company and e-SIM, EIM the leading provider of advanced simulation technology for product design, as well as web-based solutions to the consumer and industrial electronics industry, today announced that, as part of the Shop@AOL e-commerce initiative, the companies have signed an agreement to create a site to showcase customized interactive product demonstrations called LiveProducts.
Based on the same technology used in flight simulators, LiveProducts will allow visitors to AOL's online shopping destinations to experience and learn about various consumer electronics products, including phones, digital video cameras, DVD players, personal devices and Hi-Fi audio systems. Visitors to the consumer electronics areas of the Shop@AOL destinations will be able to easily access a co-branded site that will feature a series of simulated products each month. Users can then click on one of the products they are interested in, and in seconds, they can experience fully interactive product simulations and animated walk-throughs of the product features.
"Our agreement with e-SIM to offer innovative product simulations to our members, brings us one step closer to our goals of revolutionizing and simplifying our members' online shopping experience," said Patrick Gates, Vice President of E-Commerce at America Online. "With more than 20,000 AOL members buying online for the first time every day, we are committed to delivering our hallmark ease of use in innovative and exciting ways. We are happy to work with e-SIM to enhance the online shopping experience for millions of members that use AOL and its family of brands. Putting the ability to easily try products at users' fingertips, we can help them make more educated online buying decisions."
"The AOL/e-SIM relationship represents a watershed development in online shopping," said Marc Belzberg, Chairman and Interim CEO of e-SIM. "By leveraging e-SIM's LiveProducts, millions of AOL users will have the ability to create a live shopping experience as if they were in their favorite store. e-SIM will support consumers throughout the online experience with LiveProducts for product promotion and trying out products before you buy."
The e-SIM LiveProducts service on the Shop@AOL marketplace recreates the look and sound of the real product, and enables users to learn how to use the product before they make a purchase. LiveProducts will provide AOL consumers with fast, free, convenient and interactive product simulations and animated demonstrations of product features. For example, users can try out a simulated version of a digital phone. Users can point their mouse and click on the phone keypad and digits will appear on the phone's screen. LiveProducts will be available on the AOL, Inc. shopping destinations in the fall.
About e-SIM
e-SIM is a leading provider of advanced simulation technology for product design as well as Web-based solutions to the consumer electronics industry. e-SIM's proprietary simulation technology enables the distribution of electronic LiveProducts, "virtual products" that look and behave like real products, over the Internet or Intranet for web-based electronic commerce, interactive customer support and marketing. Using its proprietary technology, e-SIM will be launching its new Web service and portal site, www.livemanuals.com, featuring product simulations, animated walk-throughs of product features, and online user manuals. e-SIM's simulation technology builds off its RapidPLUS line of software products, which enables product designers and engineers to easily create simulated computer prototypes of electronic products that are fully functional, interactive and behaviorally identical to the manufactured products and systems. RapidPLUS offers automatic software code generation capabilities that significantly reduce the time to market for development of new products. For more information on e-SIM, please visit our Web site located at www.e-sim.com.
About America Online
Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 18 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.
Certain matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, significant fluctuations and unpredictability of operating results, risks in product and technology development and rapid technological change, dependence on a single product line, extent of demand for the Company's product, impact of competitive products and pricing, market acceptance, lengthy sales cycle, changing economic conditions, risks of joint development projects, dependence on key personnel, difficulties in managing growth, risks relating to sales and distribution, risks associated with international sales, risks of product defects, dependence on company proprietary technology. For a more detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, see each company's annual report as filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
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