BANCBOSTON ROBERTSON STEPHENS
The Internet Stock Team
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October 1, 1999
The Web Report - Volume 2, Issue #39
Internetstocks.com Overview - Keith E. Benjamin -
mailto:keith@rsco.com
This week, the NETDEX index increased 9% to 563.28, compared with
the NASDAQ, which stayed flat.
While the NETDEX is up approximately 38% from its August lows, it
is still down about 30% from its all-time high of 801.41 on
4/13/99. If we look at percentage changes from low to high in
previous quarters (particularly last year's fourth quarter), the
NETDEX was up 67.5% in Q3:98, up 202.4% in Q4:98, up 66.0% in
Q1:99, up 69.6% in Q2:99 and up 47.1% in Q3:99.
SEPTEMBER QUARTER EARNINGS PREVIEW: We have been encouraged by the
modest recovery in many stocks and anticipate further progress as
we near reporting season, with Yahoo! scheduled to be the first to
report on October 6. Commerce activity appears to be building in
anticipation of the holiday season, and we expect that this will
serve as a potential catalyst for the sector. We do, however,
expect that many eTailers will use the Q3 reporting season as an
opportunity to make sure expectations for Q4 don't get overly
optimistic, leaving them insufficient room to post major upside.
With many of the leading stocks still 40% below highs, we believe
there is a buying opportunity throughout the group. In our view,
stocks with the biggest potential for earnings-related upside and
catalysts include Yahoo!, MapQuest, Student Advantage, Network
Solutions, Ticketmaster-CitySearch, Priceline.com and
InfoSpace.com. Stocks for which we believe earnings releases should
confirm strong business prospects and where we believe the stocks
are not reflecting the opportunity include Excite @Home and
Gemstar.
eTail Update - Lauren Cooks Levitan - mailto:lauren@rsco.com
The eTailDEX surged to 1228.88, up 11.3% from 1103.8 last week. The
eTailDEX is currently up 51.2% from the recent low of 812.5 on
August 4 but still down 32% from the 52-week high of 1807.45,
suggesting room for substantial moves in the group over the coming
months. We note that the recent gains in the eTailDEX have been
fueled primarily by the large capitalization franchise names (with
Amazon up 28.1% and eToys up 19.6% this past week). Over the coming
weeks, we anticipate that smaller cap eTailers, such as Beyond.com,
Alloy Online and Global Sports, could also benefit from heightened
investor and consumer enthusiasm for online shopping.
AMAZON -EVOLVING INTO THE FIRST eTAIL PORTAL - Amazon's stock
jumped more than 22% on Wednesday's news that through its new
zSHOPS program, its valuable Web storefront is now available (for a
fee) to any merchant interested in selling online. While some
critics interpreted this move as an indication that Amazon's
business model is flawed, we saw this move as Amazon's opportunity
to solidify its position as the most dominant online shopping
destination. Our positive investment thesis for Amazon has long
been based on our belief that the company is uniquely positioned,
given its 12 million customers and solid brand presence that
connotes expert status in online shopping, to transition into a Web
landlord. Through zSHOPS and the company's expanded search
functionality, we believe Amazon.com can extend its brand to
represent a gateway to online shopping for both consumers and other
merchants alike. We particularly like the high margin, fee-based
revenue stream that the new shopping format affords Amazon. Over
time, we expect that tiers of merchant partners could emerge
(borrowing a page from the AOL playbook). We fully expect this
area to evolve over the coming months (we would like to see a more
visually appealing presentation of items for starters) with a wide
range of retailers, vendors and eTailers experimenting with this
forum as a low cost means of reaching the single largest audience
of qualified online shoppers. We did not change our estimates for
Amazon based on this announcement, but firmly believe that this
move, if executed solidly, should allow the company to continue to
exceed expectations. More importantly, we believe Amazon's growing
opportunity to participate in an increasing share of total eTailing
transactions warrants a valuation in excess of current levels.
ETOYS - USING CONTENT FOR COMPETITIVE DIFFERENTIATION - eToys
solidified its position as the dominant children's eTailer with the
launch of a new thematic content area called Idea Center. Inspired
by children's interests, Idea Center allows children and adults to
explore their imaginations in areas such as "when I grow up, I want
to be a*" and "the wonders of science." In our view, eToys has
again raised the bar for online shopping for kids. Through the Idea
Center, eToys is essentially capturing its core customers'
imaginations and deepening its ties to both parents and kids.
Interestingly, eToys provides useful links to other "kid approved"
sites of relevance off of the Idea Center pages. We believe this
establishes eToys' content offering as something far deeper than
simply window dressing for a commerce offering and, therefore,
could lead to an increasingly loyal and active customer base.
Certainly, we believe eToys should be able to generate related
product sales as customers search and discover new interests.
Finally, we note that we believe this type of offering and the
expert status it communicates differentiates eToys from broad-line
eTailers (such as Amazon and WalMart) as well as land-based toy
retailers.
PRICELINE - ANOTHER WEEK BRINGS ANOTHER NEW SERVICE AND LICENSEE -
Priceline announced an agreement with Budget Rent-a-Car this week
whereby Budget will become a preferred supplier for Priceline's
name-your-price car rental service expected to launch in Q4. We
find it interesting that less than four months after Budget
launched a service similar to Priceline's patented demand
collection system, Budget now plans to license Priceline's business
method and phase out its own service. We wonder if potential
litigation sparked this partnership or whether Priceline's leading
brand and technology in the name-your-price market made for a more
attractive ally than foe. We believe that as other Web players
recognize the growing popularity and consumer acceptance of
Priceline's demand collection business method, a growing number of
would-be competitors could follow the likes of Budget and WebHouse
(Priceline's first licensee) and choose to partner with Priceline
and leverage its core competencies. Longer term, we believe this
could lead to a significant high margin revenue stream for
Priceline that should complement its robust core businesses.
GLOBAL SPORTS TEAMS WITH WebMD - Global Sports announced a broad
partnership with WebMD, to operate the eCommerce element of the new
sports medicine and fitness channel to be created by WebMD and
HEALTHSOUTH. We believe the WebMD store could become one of Global
Sports' biggest eTail storefronts. The alliance offers Global
Sports exposure to consumers looking for rich health-related
content, one of the fastest growing web use categories, as well as
to each of WebMD's strategic partners, including MSN, Lycos,
Excite, Readers Digest and CNN. We continue to believe that Global
Sports' unique format and ability to leverage the existing brands
of its retail partners should position the company to be the
leading sporting goods eTailer when it commences operations later
this month.
WHOLE FOODS ANNOUNCES ONLINE STRATEGY - Whole Foods announced
aggressive plans for the creation of a new Internet subsidiary to
be called WholePeople.com, to be formed by merging its existing
WholeFoods.com business with its nutritional supplement subsidiary,
Amrion. Whole Foods has letters of intent for $35 million in
investment dollars for the new venture, which is valued at $260
million, and plans to launch the site in spring. The company
stated its intention to become the leading brand in the "whole
living" eTail category by leveraging off its existing Whole Foods
and Amryon customer base and establishing partnerships with
complementary businesses. The company's announced intention to
have only 10% of its online sales come from products available in
brick and mortar stores "in a couple years" seemed to echo
Starbucks' announcement a few months ago to create an online
lifestyle business that was an extension of its current land-based
focus. While investors reacted swiftly and negatively to
Starbucks' announcement, we believe that the Whole Foods strategy
makes sense given its market niche and the growing popularity of
health-related Web sites. We also note the growing number of
land-based retailers that are willing to take outside venture
capital to accelerate their online moves. We believe this
financing strategy has significant potential advantages with
respect to the critical issues of time to market and access to
online talent.
eNetwork Update - Michael Graham - mailto:michael@rsco.com
CMGI PACE OF INVESTMENTS INCREASING, BUYS FLYCAST - This week CMGI
reported Q4:99 results, which gives us increased confidence that
our asset value estimate is conservative. The company is currently
pursuing venture investments at the rate of about one per week. As
the pace and size of investments has been increasing, we believe
management has become more focused on identifying large open-ended
markets where it can create an edge and strengthen its offering
through acquisition. The first example has been purchases in the
advertising management space, including the acquisitions of
AdForce, AdKnowledge, and most recently Flycast. We believe the
Flycast acquisition complements CMGI's AdSmart subsidiary and
strengthens CMGI's suite of advertising management companies,
ratcheting up its ability to compete with eMarketing leader
DoubleClick. Also this week management disclosed plans for two new
international funds with plans to launch @Ventures Asia and
@Ventures Europe. We also expect CMGI will take an even larger
ownership of @Ventures IV than the 20% stake in @Ventures III,
which implies a bigger positive impact on CMGI's asset value if the
investments perform well. We estimate CMGI's conservative asset
value is $65. If we take an optimistic stance regarding the IPO
prospects for each of the nearly 50 investments, we estimate the
asset value at $139. We continue to believe investors will pay a
premium for the investment expertise on the Web and rank the stock
near the top of our list.
YAHOO!: We expect Yahoo! to begin earnings season by posting
impressive growth metrics across the board next week. While there
has been no formal announcement, we understand Yahoo! has been
increasing ad rates across its inventory. Because of the wide
range of pricing options, including discounts, it's difficult to
estimate averages. However, looking toward next year, we believe
the increase will end up being greater than prior moves, maybe
closer to double digits than single digits on a percentage basis.
For the next two quarters, we remain highly confident about Yahoo's
rapid growth rate. For the December quarter, we believe the company
may finally have fixed its commerce strategy, enabling it to
capture more holiday shopping dollars in its new mall, which
includes more branded stores with improved merchandising. We also
believe the numbers from international markets are starting to rise
to significant levels. In our view, Yahoo! is positioned to capture
a disproportionate share of the Web's upside with less controversy
than almost any other stock in the group.
MAPQUEST: We believe that MapQuest is poised to deliver a strong
quarter. We believe page views for both its consumer and business
segments are tracking ahead of schedule and there is potential
upside to revenue in both segments. On the business-to-business
front, we believe the company will easily meet or beat our new
business customer estimates of 120 total additions in the quarter.
We believe contracts with sites such as Yahoo! are tracking well
and believe the performance based structure of these deals could
also provide upside to our revenue estimates for the second half
of the year. We expect the company to relaunch its consumer Web
site, mapquest.com, within the next month and believe several new
features could lead to increased revenue and traffic. Included is
a mapping feature that allows users to track vehicular traffic on
major routes and actually view roadways live online. We believe
investors will begin to focus on the very large market MapQuest is
pursuing from a leadership position, and we expect the stock to
work much higher as the scope of opportunities becomes apparent.
TICKETMASTER CITYSEARCH: We believe TMCS is poised to deliver an
excellent quarter with significant upside to our estimates. We see
a disconnect between accelerating business trends and the stock as
a function of pressure from sales of stock, particularly from
individuals and companies receiving stock after selling their
companies to Ticketmaster. We believe we are close to the
completion of most of these stock sales. For reference, the stock
is down 42.3% from a post-Q2 high of $40-1/16 on July 19. In our
opinion, the company leads in local content by a wide margin and is
just beginning to exploit local commerce opportunities, starting
with tickets and recently local auctions, dating services and more.
We view this market as quite large and view the stock as a core Web
franchises.
INFOSPACE: We believe there is upside to our Q3 estimates, given
the flurry of recent deals announced by the company and our
sequential revenue growth estimate of 24%. We believe InfoSpace
has only begun to capitalize on its opportunity to supply Web
content to a wide range of Web sites. We believe the company is
developing a Webwide infrastructure for facilitating commerce by
blending its content offerings (i.e., yellow pages and classified
ads) with its newly developed technologies such as ActiveShopper,
ActivePromotion, and StoreBuilder. The end product is a fully
integrated content and commerce solution that can be targeted
toward any user and tailored for any Web site.
STUDENT ADVANTAGE ACQUIRES VOICE FX: The company announced plans
to acquire Voice FX Corporation for approximately $1.3 million in
cash and 478,000 shares of STAD common stock. Voice FX provides
Internet and voice response telephone services to colleges and
university registrar offices. The company's proprietary technology,
students can access grades, order transcripts and find out about
financial aid, all online or over the phone. We estimate that
approximately 650,000 students at 54 colleges and universities
currently use Voice FX solutions. As such, we view this acquisition
as yet another move on Student Advantage's part to offer more
valuable products and services to student members.
EXCITE @HOME: We believe subscriber growth, revenues, and earnings
to be in line or slightly higher than our estimates. Our 3Q:99
ending @Home subscriber estimate is 800,000, a sequential increase
of 180,000 subscriptions. We do not expect much upside this
quarter and would be impressed with the addition of 200,000
subscribers. We believe there to be more upside, in the 10%-20%
range, to our Media revenue of $70.6 million as Excite executes.
Although we expect any upside to be spent against sales and
marketing and not follow through to EPS, we believe Excite @Home
could begin to show its breadth of vision with new partnerships,
including deals for customer acquisition initiatives with large
companies such as Microsoft and for "@Home-Ready PCs" as hinted at
by last weeks agreement with Dell. Short term, we believe
Excite@Home's stock could be volatile as investors might overreact
to open access developments and AT&T-related news, either positive
or negative. We believe the first important event will be when the
appeal process involving open access in Portland, Oregon, begins.
We expect the first data point from that process in November, with
rest of the news spilling into next year before final resolution.
We continue to believe the issue will subside with little impact on
Excite@Home's business.
GEMSTAR: We believe our estimates to be conservative, with room
for upside when Gemstar reports in late November. We believe there
could be less upside to our current licensing revenue estimates,
but we expect more in the next few quarters. Longer term, we
believe there is very big upside from advertising revenue. We
anticipate raising all of our revenue estimates substantially in
the next month. The company may be reaching more people with its
advertising-based guides faster than we had anticipated. We
believe that Gemstar's existing relationships with consumer
electronic manufacturers will help extend the company's reach into
new platforms. We believe Gemstar's Guide Plus to be in almost
every U.S. household in three to five years. We continue to find
the risk/reward profile of the stock compelling and maintain
Gemstar as our top pick.
CNET GENERATING MORE REVENUE: CNET announced that it generated more
than $270 million in revenue for its merchant partners in Q3, up
44% from $187 million in Q2. We believe this suggests
lead-generated fees for CNET could be near $8.5 million for Q3, up
from $6.0 million in Q2. This data point reinforces our confidence
for potential upside to our $26.4 million revenue estimate, and we
believe earnings should be in-line with our estimate of $(0.33) as
the company wraps up the third month of its large-scale advertising
campaign. CNET is set to report Q3 earnings on October 21st.
eMarketing Update - Lowell J. Singer - mailto:lowell@rsco.com
NET PERCEPTIONS INTRODUCES E-MAIL PRODUCT: Net Perceptions
introduced its fourth product, Net Perceptions for Marketing
Campaigns. The product will use the company's recommendation
software to aid marketers in improving the targeting of e-mails. In
our view, this product has broad B-to-C and B-to-B implications.
We believe that personalization is becoming increasingly critical
to Web merchants, and Net Perceptions' broad suite of products
positions the company as a critical partner in this area. We
believe that our estimates remain conservative, with upside coming
from the addition of new customers and from higher revenue per
client as Net Perceptions' product offerings grow.
eBusiness Update - Eric Upin - mailto:eric@rsco.com
FORMAL LAUNCH OF B2B COMMERCE SECTOR: This week we formerly
launched focused coverage on Business-to-Business (B2B) eCommerce
companies. We believe that B2B companies represent the next major
stage of Internet growth and stock appreciation-substantially
eclipsing the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) space by several orders of
magnitude.
In our opinion, we are approaching an inflection point as the
evolution of the Internet and IT systems, coupled with broad market
factors, are setting the stage for B2B growth. The evolution of
enabling technologies has resulted in the broad access, bandwidth,
security and reliability necessary to handle huge transaction
volumes. B2C eCommerce has also validated Internet models-as
evidenced by the success of companies such as AOL, Amazon, eBay and
Yahoo!. In addition, business applications have evolved from
back-office accounting and reporting systems to front-office
solutions that are now capable of supplier and customer
interaction. Moreover, an increasingly competitive marketplace and
the need to dot.com the business are compounding demand for B2B
solutions.
We believe B2B eCommerce represents one of the largest Internet
opportunities moving forward-where the addressable markets and rate
of adoption will far exceed B2C. Today, of the more than $20
trillion in goods and services that change hands in the U.S.
annually, business-to-business transactions account for
approximately $17 trillion, or 85% of total commerce. Assuming 10%
of business-to-business transactions in the U.S. move online by
2003, the implied eCommerce value exceeds $1.7 trillion. The global
market could more than double the U.S. in size assuming even lower
adoption rates.
We believe new companies with new solutions are best positioned to
address the complexities and sophistication of B2B. B2B is
characterized by intricate handshaking, front-end customization,
financing, cross-border logistics and regulations among fragmented
buyers and suppliers. Moreover, products are mission critical and
highly time-sensitive, resulting in the need for real-time, robust
solutions that can handle heavy volume and tightly integrate with
back-office systems. Domain expertise is critical-giving rise to
vertical solutions that address the unique dynamics of each
industry.
We believe B2B will introduce powerful benefits to both buyers and
sellers-lowering the cost of doing business, creating markets on a
network scale, and improving service levels. B2B lowers product and
procurement costs and speeds time-to-market while creating larger
markets for suppliers and more vendor choices for buyers. Moreover,
it enables suppliers to offer greater breadth of products and
services, real-time interaction and shorter delivery times.
We believe B2B business models will enable companies to grow
bigger, faster-producing winners with lasting franchises. B2B
eCommerce companies will possess a number of attributes, including
a high ROI proposition, sticky solutions, and Internet reach. In
our opinion, these drivers are fueling rapid adoption and the rise
of huge, lasting franchises.
VERTICALNET: This week we initiated research coverage of
VerticalNet (VERT) with a Buy rating. VerticalNet operates a
portfolio of highly focused, vertical trade communities on the
Internet. Each of the company's 47 sites provides content,
communities and commerce, including product sales, auctions,
industry news, online forums, career centers, and other resources
for industry constituents. In our view, VerticalNet has developed a
highly scalable model that leverages best practices in terms of
strategy, operations and technology infrastructure, enabling the
company to quickly build deep vertical solutions.
We are positive on the company and the stock as we believe
VerticalNet's portfolio of vertical sites represents a diversified
play on B2B eCommerce. In our opinion, VerticalNet is a first mover
in the emerging B2B world with an early lead in building the
content and communities that lay the foundation for lasting
eCommerce franchises. Moreover, VerticalNet's ability to lever the
Internet model represents tremendous upside potential-where
recurring commerce transactions could profoundly alter the model in
terms of revenue growth and longer term profitability.
STAMPS: Stamps.com announced another distribution partner this
week, 3M. Beginning in January 2000, promotions for Stamps.com'
service will be bundled with 3M products, either in the form of
marketing inserts or CD-Roms. In addition, Stamps.com will be the
exclusive online postage service promoted on 3M's Web site. In
addition, Stamps revealed more details on its arrangements with
Lotus and ZDNet this week. For Lotus, Stamps service will be easily
accessible through an icon on the Lotus Organizer Release 6
toolbar. Stamps service will be also be available throughout the
ZDNet network.
eServices Update - Steven Birer - mailto:steven_birer@rsco.com
Network Solutions reaches agreement; now it reaches for the sky.
Network Solutions has been awarded an extension of its contract
with the government to act as the registry for the Internet. In
exchange for recognizing ICANN as its governing body, Network
Solutions was awarded a three-year extension (on top of the
one-year remaining) of its registry contract and the right to renew
thereafter. Network Solutions will charge $6.00 per year for
registry services, down from the current $9.00. On the registrar
side of the business, we expect competition to continue to
increase; more than 64 companies have signed up to provide these
services. We expect Network Solutions to continue to play a
meaningful part in the registrar business given its existing
relationships with ISPs and direct marketing efforts. How big is
the opportunity? If we assume that the marketplace for registered
Internet names is 100 million, and we make the further assumption
that Network Solutions can maintain 25% market share of the
registrar business, we can envision the company generating $850
million a year from just the core business alone. To the extent
that the company can leverage its central position on the Internet,
revenues would go up from there. In our opinion, Network Solutions
remains one of the strongest franchises on the Internet, with
strong cash flows and profitability and excellent revenue
visibility. With the removal of the uncertainty surrounding the
company's agreement with ICANN and the Department of Commerce, we
believe that the outlook for the company looks as bright as ever.
Modem Media: The Industry Standard? Modem Media-Poppe Tyson
announced that it has been awarded a contract to expand the
functionality of The Industry Standard's Web site, TheStandard.com.
The Industry Standard is a publication that focuses on
Internet-related news and information. Modem Media was hired to
build database-driven functionality into TheStandard.com, leading
to personalization features, improved customer service, dynamic
payment processing and enhanced communications for both visitors
and vendors. In our view, the Industry Standard represents another
in a string of high profile wins that Modem Media has announced
this quarter. We continue to believe that Modem Media is
undervalued compared to its peer group; we encourage investors
interested in a product-free way to invest in the Internet to
seriously consider Modem Media.
HotJobs: Making It Easier To Get In On The Ground Floor. HotJobs
announced that it will launch several new career channels including
one designed to help people find jobs in start-up companies. The
fit seems obvious: start-ups need people, but have limited means to
find them, and due to the potential upside in being in on the
ground floor of a start-up, many job-seekers clamor to work for
them. In addition to the start-up channel, HotJobs is adding
channels focused on Sales & Marketing, Retail, Technology and Human
Resource. We believe that this emphasizes a critical direction
that on-line job sites will take. In our opinion, brand name of a
job site will eclipse vertical industry focus as the larger job
sites gain scale and create vertical channels under the brand. We
believe that HotJobs has excellent brand recognition, and that it
is well positioned to be one of the winners in the emerging on-line
job search business.
eBrokers - Weekly Stock Volume Report - Scott Appleby -
mailto:scott@rsco.com
This week, Fidelity announced an agreement with Lycos that will
allow Fidelity's online brokerage customers to use Lycos'
personalization products to create customized web sites. Fidelity
calls its newly enhanced online brokerage service Powerstreet and
has tailored it to meet the needs of active traders. Powerstreet
offers faster access, planning tools for long-term financial
planning, and free Nasdaq Level II quotes. The service will allow
Fidelity to compete with Schwab and E*Trade, which also have
personalized web page service. E*Trade also recently announced
its acquisition of Confluent Inc., provider of the Abrio calendar
engine, in efforts to develop the Personal Financial Information
Manager for E*Trade customers.
Volume Update - Trading activity was heavy this week as investors
concerned about overvaluation rushed to sell and bargain-hunters
rushed to buy technology stocks. This week, September 22-28,
volumes on the NetDex increased 35% over last week from 128.0
million shares to 173.0 million shares traded. While volumes are
showing signs of recovery from the seasonal slowdown, total NetDex
volume for the quarter to date still lags with 9.18 billion shares
traded, 23% lower than last quarter's volume over the same period
of 11.9 billion. Volumes for the TechDex reached their highest
point this quarter this week, totaling 1.65 billion shares traded,
up 12% from last week's volume of 1.47 billion. However, for the
quarter up until September 28, TechDex total volume is only 18.3
billion, down 19% from last quarter's volume over the same period
of 22.7 billion.
While volumes were way up this week, the eBrokerDex was once again
down as a result of general market decline. The Nasdaq ended the
week at 2756.25 on September 28, down 3.5% from last week. The
eBrokerDex closed at 111 this report week (September 22-28), down
6.7% from last week's Index of 119 and down 39% from the beginning
of the quarter. However, on Wednesday (9/29), eBrokerage stocks
bounced back a bit, closing at 117, up 5% from the previous day.
ECN Update- ECNs are gaining an increasing number of Nasdaq shares
and are expected to do the same in listed securities. In order to
improve after-hour trading conditions, eight leading ECNs recently
signed a non-exclusive agreement to link up their systems and make
trading information available to all their customers. The ECNs
involved are Archipelago, B-Trade, BRUT, Instinet, Island,
MarketXT, REDIBook, and Strike Technologies. In our opinion, this
move will facilitate the execution of after-hour customer orders by
providing a consolidated pricing mechanism.
Several online brokers have announced plans to offer online trading
through these ECNs. Ameritrade recently announced that it will
offer extended hours trading through several ECNs, including Island
and MarketXT, as well as through Knight Securities and the Chicago
Stock Exchange. E*Trade plans to offer after-hour trading through
an agreement with Instinet, while DLJ Direct currently uses
Instinet to execute after-hour trades for its Select Client Group.
Levitt Urges Single Electronic Venue- While ECNs currently account
for approximately 30% of Nasdaq trading volume, they receive very
little Big Board trading due to certain NYSE rules and regulations.
However, in a speech last Thursday at Columbia University, SEC
Chairman Arthur Levitt urged the NYSE to change the rules in order
for customers to take full advantage of ECNs. Levitt would like to
see a single venue for displaying orders from the different
exchanges so that customers can easily access stock information.
Security First Technologies Update- Security First (SONE), a
leading provider of Internet applications for financial
institutions, announced plans to acquire VerticalOne Corporation
for approximately $166 million in stock. VerticalOne is a
privately held institution that provides technology that
consolidates, organizes, and presents personal account information
over the Internet. Security First currently provides its Internet
banking software to over 100 financial institutions. This
acquisition will expand Security First's product offering to
provide technology that aggregates personal account information and
online account summaries in one page while linking to other
transaction sites. By allowing Security First's customers t |
