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Strategies & Market Trends : Rande Is . . . HOME -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steven Finkel who wrote (18110)	1/6/2000 2:40:00 PM
From: Steven Finkel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57584

Gold Country Seed Saves Money and Time by Using B2BXchange to Link 12 Independent Seed Companies - Vertical Agriculture Community Allows Subscribers to Transition Traditional Paper-Based Processes - MINNEAPOLIS, MN, January 4, 2000 - B2BXchange, Inc., an Internet-based business-to-business services provider and a VirtualFund, Inc. enterprise (Nasdaq: VFND), today announced its agreement with Minnesota-based Gold Country Seed, marking the start of a high growth strategy to develop multiple vertical market trading Xchanges. B2BXchange?s broad set of online tools links Gold Country Seeds? 12 independent seed companies together and allows them to transition traditional paper-based business processes to the Web to enable online commerce, collaboration and content. As part of Gold Country?s initial efforts, they created a public web site and established an online store to conduct transactions and fulfill purchase orders. "Working with B2BXchange was a strategic, competitive move for Gold Country Seed," noted Dave Richter, Gold Country?s General Manager. "By taking advantage of B2BXchange, we leapfrogged our competition to save time and money. We saved by using a more cost-effective solution compared to working with a traditional e-business services firm. And, with regard to our business processes, we will save time and money by making them more efficient and effective." Gold Country Seed was in the process of contracting to build a traditional web site to help it establish an Internet presence. By working with B2BXchange, Gold Country was able to build their Web site and store in hours instead of weeks with no out of pocket cost, using template-driven web site building tools which require no knowledge of Internet programming languages. B2BXchange services will enable Gold Country Seed to transition paper-based business processes to instantly garner improvements in distribution, purchasing and crop planning in order to conduct business over the Internet. Additional capabilities Gold Country can anticipate include: e-mail online warehouse inventory management the development of extranets for vendor purchasing and tracking orders as well as communications with international partners in Japan private discussion groups for crop planning, customer management and business development among the 12 independent companies. "The agriculture industry is filled with midsized companies that are in an excellent position to use B2BXchange and reap its benefits. Using B2BXchange tools, everyone from Ag manufacturers to farmers has the opportunity to instantly extend their reach to new, potential customers and grow their business ( efficiently and cost effectively," said Mike Ellsworth, B2BXchange Vice President of Strategic Planning. "Gold Country Seed is a perfect example of how business can make the leap into e-business quickly and strategically to reduce operating, materials and services costs and improve management practices." B2BXchange services are designed to provide subscribers with a customizable suite of services that enable: Commerce - conduct transactions online Collaboration - work online with vendors, partners, customers and employees Content - provide key audiences with the information they need online Early this year, B2BXchange will augment its services with the aggregation of a Vertical Xchange Footprint of domain names that will organize B2BXchange customer sites into a "yellow pages" directory on the Web. Utilizing these domain names, B2BXchange will organize customer Web content, e-commerce software tools and online industry-specific management tools into a series of descriptive industry-specific business-to-business destinations for aggregating related goods and services. This represents the first of many additional B2BXchange capabilities that will continue to be built into its services. About Gold Country Seed Based in Hutchinson, Minnesota, Gold Country Seed is comprised of 12 independent seed companies, with International relationships. For more information, visit their new B2BXchange Web site at web.b2bx.net/goldcountryseed or goldcountryseed.com. B2BXchange, Inc. B2BXchange is a leading provider of Internet services that enable business to build their businesses online - fast! It is a fully incubated company established by VirtualFund, Inc. B2BXchange offers subscribers free access to basic applications that allow them to create an online presence and an electronic storefront. As the subscribers? businesses grow and they need more capabilities and ultimately more bandwidth, B2BXchange offers additional storage, bandwidth and more feature-rich applications to streamline their businesses. These additional features are available for a fee, ranging from $75 to $2,995 per month, depending on service level requirements. More information about B2BXchange can be found at www.b2bxchange.net. For more information about VirtualFund, Inc., visit their web site at www.virtualfund.com.