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To: Dealer who wrote (19717)	11/27/2000 9:58:51 AM
From: Dealer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

INTC--Hong Kong's iMerchants, Intel Enter Online Exchange Alliance By Ilan Greenberg Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal Intel Corp. of the U.S. and iMerchants Ltd. have struck an alliance, giving the Hong Kong-based e-commerce provider a powerful war chest in the increasingly competitive Asian market for online exchanges: access to the newest Intel technology, introductions to Intel's regional customer base and the prestige of association with the giant semiconductor maker. In return, Intel expects iMerchants will encourage its online customers to adopt Intel's products and standards for themselves. The alliance, which involved no cash exchange, follows a pattern of agreements between Intel and smaller Internet concerns around the world. "Our goal is not to take any of their revenue away from them, but to give their customers inducement to develop on the Intel architecture," said Sean Maloney, an Intel senior vice president of sales and marketing. To date, iMerchants has focused its electronic marketplaces on four areas: online financial services, online billing and payment services and online commercial services. The fourth is a planned launch toward the end of the year of an airplane-parts exchange, called iShopaero, for Asian suppliers and buyers, according to Leroy Kung, chief executive at iMerchants, who founded the company in 1996 after spending a decade working at several high-tech companies in California's Silicon Valley. iShopaero is itself a collaboration between iMerchants and Singapore-based ST Aerospace, a unit of Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd. The company is projecting annual revenue of between US$1 million and US$1.5 million on each of its working exchanges, according to Mr. Kung. The agreement with Intel crests a positive period for iMerchants, which trades on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company posted a six-month net profit of US$195,000 in September and a revenue growth rate of 227%, compared with a loss of US$40,000 a year earlier, the company's latest unaudited results show. Online exchanges are one aspect of the faltering sector of e-commerce that Intel has trained its sights, according to Mr. Maloney, and not only in Asia. The company sees exchanges -- which have a business model not unlike the eBay auction site, except that transactions are limited to the more lucrative arena of transactions between businesses -- as the service currently most likely to reap dividends on the Web. "Despite all the hyperbole and talk of an Internet bubble around the world, an e-commerce infrastructure is at the heart of what will make the Internet" a profitable business tool, Mr. Maloney said.