Companies to Offer Hitachi's SOHO Customers Community and Collaboration Services

BOSTON and TOKYO (July 26, 2000) - Intranets.com today announced an agreement with Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT based in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President & Director: Etsuhiko Shoyama, hereunder abbreviated by Hitachi), one of the world's largest electronics companies, to establish a global relationship, focusing on joint marketing and development of Intranets.com's services. The agreement provides community and collaboration services to Hitachi's business-to-consumer, business-to-business and business-to-enterprise customers. The companies will roll out services initially in Japan, but plan to expand throughout Asia.

Intranets.com, the largest and fastest growing intranet service provider, has teamed up with Hitachi's eService and Business Development division to bring its more than 100,000 small business customers intranets with localized support, content and commerce.

The partnership with Hitachi comes four months after Intranets.com launched a joint venture called Intranets.co.jp, a Japanese-language version of Intranets.com with local content and commerce. Already more than 34,000 small businesses and organizations in Japan have registered for the communication and collaboration tools at Intranets.co.jp. Hitachi has purchased 30 percent share of Intranets.co.jp as part of the partnership. As a result of this deal, Hitachi became the second shareholder of Intranets.co.jp.

"The Japanese market is the second largest in the world and a significant component in our global strategy," said Steve Crummey, CEO and president of Intranets.com. "Partnering with a world-renown brand name like Hitachi gives Intranets.co.jp an immediate credibility boost and a deeper penetration into this important market."

"We have adopted Intranets.com's concept to create `Hitachi e-Service Community' to target Japan's largest e-marketplace communities- small office and home office, consumer outlet stores and employees welfare service," said Kimitoshi Yamada, general manager, e-service and business development division of Hitachi. "The comprehensive partnership with Intranets.com and Intranets.co.jp builds upon our proven BtoC experience to deliver various new community services to our customers."

While providing more than 240,000 intranets worldwide, Intranets.com, an idealab! venture, has moved increasingly toward developing co-branded intranet solutions for strategic partners such as Inc.com, Concentic Network Partners, Insight Direct Worldwide and Virginbiz.net. Through these partnerships, Intranets.com strategically grows its user base while partners are able to offer their small business customers free intranets as a value-added service.

Intranets.com applications include document sharing, group calendars, announcement postings, group discussions and hosted e-mail.

About Hitachi Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1999 (ended March 31, 2000) consolidated sales of 8,001 billion yen ($75.5 billion at an exchange rate of 106 yen to the dollar). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at www.hitachi.co.jp.

About Intranets.com
Intranets.com is the world's leading provider of on-demand collaboration services for small businesses or departments and groups inside large organizations. The company serves more than 350,000 users across 10,000 companies worldwide and offers a secure, web-based collaboration suite to share critical business information quickly and easily at any time from anywhere. Privately held and profitable, Intranets.com is led by an experienced team of software industry professionals who are committed to providing a secure, customizable, easy-to-deploy intranet solution supported by world-class customer service. Intranets.com is a PC Magazine "Editor's Choice" winner and is rated one of the world's "Top 25" leading service providers by ASPNews. The company has also been ranked by the Boston Business Journal as one of the fastest growing private companies in Massachusetts for two consecutive years. For more information or to take a FREE 30-day test drive, visit http://www.intranets.com/pr, e-mail corpsales@intranets.com or call 888-932-2600 or 781-565-6000.

About idealab!
idealab! (www.idealab.com ) identifies, creates and operates Internet businesses. Founded in March 1996 by Bill Gross, idealab! currently has approximately 50 businesses in various stages of development. idealab! generates ideas for new Internet businesses and creates, capitalizes and operates a separate company to conduct each new business. Actively participating in the on-going operations of its network companies through board representation, information sharing and facilitating collaboration among the companies, idealab! also recruits management to oversee the day-to-day operations allowing senior management to concentrate on executing the business plan. Additionally, idealab! provides each operating company with a full range of operational support services including office space and the accompanying network infrastructure, technology, graphic design, marketing, competitive research, legal, accounting and business development services. idealab! public companies include eToys (Nasdaq: ETYS), GoTo.com (Nasdaq: GOTO), CitySearch (TMCS), NetZero (Nasdaq: NZRO) and Tickets.com (Nasdaq: TIXX).

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Press Contact:

Colin Smith
Director of Public Relations
408.566.5694

For Hitachi Contact:
Masanao Sato
03-3258-2056
syoujiki@cm.head.hitachi.co.jp

For Hitachi America Contact:
Terry Kubo
(650) 244-7902
tatsuya.kubo@hal.hitachi.com

 

Intranets.com is a trademark of Intranets.com, Inc. idealab! is a registered trademark of idealab!, Inc. Inc.com and Click of Approval are trademarks of the Goldhirsh Group, Inc. Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.