NEWS RELEASE

For More Information Contact:

Ingrid Andrews
Creative Marketing Group
760-438-3399

Marti Colwell
iMarkup Solutions, Inc.
877-MARKUP1 Ext. 251

 

INTER-MENT SELECTS iMARKUP TO ASSIST JAPANESE COMPANIES TO PROFILE THEIR USERS

Customers to Use Content Review Server to Enhance One to One Communication

 

 

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Oct 30, 2002 – iMarkup Solutions Inc., (www.imarkup.com), a leading provider of web-based collaboration tools, today announced that it has been selected by Inter-Ment, Inc., a Japanese website consulting, management and certification firm, to annotate and report on digital content. As part of its value proposition with Inter-Ment customers, the company is offering iMarkup’s Content Review Server (CRS) to collect the requests of users who access its clients’ websites and to improve communications between clients and their users throughout Japanese web sites.

Inter-Ment is a private corporation capitalized by venture funding and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The majority of its employees worked together previously for six years on web development projects at a major corporation. Wanting to provide a marketing system that could measure the usability of websites, improve that usability and assist clients in obtaining ISO 9241 registration, Takeaki Kurosaki and his three co-founders started Inter-Ment earlier this year. In offering consulting services to client companies, Inter-Ment reviews the structure and type of websites the companies have developed and makes recommendations as to what its clients can do to provide their users with a more satisfying Internet experience, improve customer/user communication and offer a more secure Internet experience. Inter-Ment clients include utility companies, PC companies, well-known apparel and credit card companies and financial institutions.

With the recent increase in the number of Internet users in Japan, websites need to more accurately address the needs of their users. Relying on only statistical data, such as access logs, it is not possible for companies to accurately understand these user requirements. To build a strong relationship between its clients and their users, Inter-Ment is accumulating and analyzing research data gathered from users as they are browsing websites to help its clients. “If a company misjudges the content it provides its users that can result in wasted resources and lost money. With iMarkup, it is easy to acquire this input directly from the users,” observed Takeaki Kurosaki, President of Inter-Ment.

In the past, in order to evaluate websites, Inter-Ment invited users to come into its laboratory to use and review websites, with interviewers gathering information in real time as to the users' evaluations. This process is still commonplace within Japan but has many drawbacks -- including its high costs and the limitations of both location and time.

With iMarkup’s Content Review Server it will now be possible for Inter-Ment to dramatically decrease these costs while also eliminating location and time constraints. “We think of iMarkup as the ultimate “One to One Communication System” directly connecting the person in charge of a company to its clients. We are entering an era in which users can ask questions of companies, and companies can benefit by listening to users needs. iMarkup’s technology, which is complete, flexible and user-oriented, is an excellent step in this new paradigm, ” Kurosaki remarked.

“We are pleased to be able to offer the Web collaboration technology that companies like Inter-Ment need to assist its clients and their users,” commented John O’Brien, President of iMarkup Solutions. “Using the Content Review Server to gather demographic and statistical information is a unique application for our technology – and one that we believe will provide value to other forward-thinking companies throughout Asia Pacific. In addition, the two companies worked well together to create a localized Japanese version of the product. This was accomplished in record time as a result of iMarkup’s open architecture and the translation skills of Inter-Ment,” O’Brien concluded.

About iMarkup Solutions

     iMarkup Solutions (www.imarkup.com) provides real-time, web-based collaboration tools that enable end users to communicate, annotate and organize over the Web. The company is focused on developing tools that improve workflow and enable users to maximize their efficiency, working as intelligently with electronic information as they do with paper-based information. The iMarkup product line includes iMarkup Content Review Server, iMarkup Document Review Server and the iMarkup Client. iMarkup’s technology has earned numerous awards and recognition from publications such as ZDNet, Computerworld, Internet World, InternetWeek and eDoc and at major tradeshows including Networld + Interop and Internet World. The company is privately held and is headquartered in San Diego, California. For more information, call 877-MARKUP1 or visit www.imarkup.com.

                                    #                                  #                                  #

The iMarkup name and logo are the registered service and trademarks of iMarkup Solutions, Inc. Notice to editors: iMarkup graphics, reviews and more are available online at www.imarkup.com/press.