News:
Tuesday December 8, 12:11 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
The Dialog Corporation Launches Dialog OfficeShopper
Purchasing, Management and Procurement of Office Supplies Online
CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 8, 1998-- The Dialog Corporation (NASDAQ: DIALY - news) today announced the launch of Dialog OfficeShopper (www.officeshopper.com), a business-to-business eCommerce solution which offers corporations the ability to purchase office supplies at competitive prices through their corporate intranet and effectively manage purchasing costs. Dialog OfficeShopper features an enhanced user interface and search capabilities, making business purchasing even quicker and easier.
''The launch of Dialog OfficeShopper heralds an exciting new phase for The Dialog Corporation,'' said Andre Brown, Director of eCommerce and Special Projects, of The Dialog Corporation. ''We are able to leverage our core skills in the aggregation of information for business consumers and offer our corporate customer base an innovative eCommerce service, recently awarded 'Best Business-to-Business eCommerce transaction award' by European Catalogue and Mail Order magazine.''
''Our aim is to provide a world-leading business-to-business eCommerce service,'' added Byron Woodmansee, Managing Director of eCommerce at The Dialog Corporation. ''To this end, we are looking forward to utilizing The Dialog Corporation's proprietary technologies for indexing and searching information - InfoSort and Muscat - to further improve upon the functionality and user-friendliness of the service.''
Dialog OfficeShopper is made up of the following - a database of user details including spend limits and preferences, and descriptions for over 150,000 products from over 80 suppliers; functionality to provide budget comparison and invoice status and an interface which enables the user to search for goods and purchase online. The user interface provides significant key functionality for ease of use, including:
Expert Advisers - enable the user to select the product they need, if they are not exactly sure which items to select. There are currently Expert Advisers for envelopes and for folders, which take the user through a checklist of descriptors and then generate a list of matching products. It is envisaged that the Expert Advisers functionality will be expanded significantly to other include other products (such as printer cartridges, PC's and fax machines) in the near future.
Spend Reports - enable the user to access the most up-to-date information on their company's expenditure by department, product or item - enabling the tracking and control of current purchasing and providing information to assist in budget control.
Product Code - provides the user with the quickest way to order a particular item from the main screen, where the user knows the product code of that item. This is particularly useful for frequently ordered goods.
Personal Catalog - enables the user to build their own custom catalog of goods they wish to buy on an ongoing basis. When the user clicks on an item to purchase it, they are also given the option of clicking on an ''add to custom catalog'' icon. Once added to the Personal Catalog, any item may easily be removed when no longer required, simply by clicking on a ''Remove product'' icon at the right hand side of the item.
Frequent Buys - generates an automated list of the client's most frequent purchases. This functionality comes into its own when the normal user is out of the office and a Personal Catalogue has not been created. Another designated user is able to look at the ''Frequent Buys'' list to see what is usually ordered for that price range and all they have to do is click on the relevant item to add it to their shopping cart.
The Dialog OfficeShopper product range includes merchandise such as office stationery, computer consumables, printers and peripherals, office equipment, office furniture, fax machines, telephones, office cleaning products, printed stationery, corporate flower services and office catering products. The company plans to add other products and services including PCs, cabling products, teleconferencing products, business insurance, books, personal products, car hire services, courier services, taxi accounts, photographic and reprographic services, and security services. Moreover, where a customer has specialist needs, the company will approach a particular supplier to deliver those goods for that customer.
Dialog OfficeShopper currently has a client base of over 100 corporations including TK Maxx, ISS, EMI Music and ActionAid. These clients are served by a network of 86 suppliers and access to over 100 warehouses. The service offers over 150,000 products and boasts a two-hour delivery in major cities in the UK.
The Dialog Corporation has commenced meetings with potential suppliers and distributors in the United States, in advance of a planned launch of Dialog OfficeShopper in the US by Q2 1999.
A recent Forrester Research projection puts worldwide Internet commerce at between $1.4 trillion and $3.2 trillion in 2003. Dialog is well positioned to leverage its user-friendly interfaces and software solutions to take advantage of the opportunities in this growing marketplace as identified in the Company's e-commerce strategy announced in July 1998.
The Dialog Corporation (http://www.dialog.com) is a leading information technology company created by the merger of M.A.I.D plc and Knight-Ridder Information Inc. The Dialog Corporation brands include the DIALOG, DataStar and Profound range of products and services. These brands provide comprehensive, authoritative sources of information to professionals worldwide. The Dialog Corporation has world headquarters in London and US headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. The Company's American Depositary Shares (ADS) are traded on NASDAQ under the symbol ''DIALY'' with four Ordinary Shares comprising one ADS; its Ordinary Shares trade on the London Stock Exchange under the symbol ''DLG.''
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Contact:
The Dialog Corporation plc
Sara Parker, Corporate Communications
sara_parker@dialog.com
011-44-171-930-6900
or
Jaffoni & Collins Incorporated
David C. Collins/Robert L. Rinderman
U.S. investor relations
dialy@jcir.com
212/835-8500
or
Courtney Darby/Jed Hamilton - U.S. media contacts
courtney@middleberg.com
Middleberg + Associates
212/888-6610
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