Launch bank customers onto the Web within hours with ecBuilder www.ecbuilder.com from Multiactive www.maximizer.com

 Here’s an actual Web site created using the Web site-creation utility, MARKETBuilder integrated into Maximizer conatct management software. Web sites are hosted free on the Maximizer server, biznet.maximizer.com.

Urban Images builds granite-like planters, benches and waste receptacles for public places. Users can view product pictures, order, and pay by credit card. Card numbers are sent via encrypted message to the Web site owner.

The Company: Multiactive Technologies is privately held 30-employee firm headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. In June, it changed its name from Maximizer Technologies. Sister company Multiactive Software employs approximately 100 and publishes one of the leading contact-management software programs, Maximizer, which claims more than one million users. Maximizer was originally launched in 1987, and acquired from Modatech in 1995. The company also publishes Sharkware and Tracker
brand contact managers. The Multiactive Group of technology companies is owned by Canadian businessman Terry Hui.

Products: Multiactive publishes two products potentially of interest to banks, ecBuilder a simple and affordable ecommerce solution for small businesses; and Maximizer, a critically acclaimed contact- and customer-management software product. The August 1998 issue of Small Business Computing & Communications gave Maximizer its top 4-star rating saying, “It promises to give Symantec’s Act! a run for its money, but has also created an entirely new product type by integrating Web sales with its email and contact management features. This is one of the most useful new developments we’ve seen.” www.smalloffice.com/expert/archive/tesoft89.htm

Maximizer is sold primarily through traditional retail software channels, although it can be also be purchased direct from the company either as a shrink-wrapped title or as a download. For ecBuilder, the company is targeting financial institutions, Internet service providers and Web presence providers as primary distributors, although it can be purchased directly from the company.

We will focus primarily on ecBuilder which offers more robust ecommerce tools and can be customized as a bank-branded service. But if you do move forward with ecBuilder, you should also consider Maximizer in your plans. Its ecBuilder and Internet integration makes it an ideal adjunct product.

Price: ecBuilder retails for US$99.95 but is sold in bulk to partners for $35 to $40 or less, with large volume buys as low as $10 per copy. The price is all-inclusive including tech support. There are no license fees or monthly maintenance fees.

Maximizer carries a US$149 list price, but we found it on the Web for $111 to $139, or you can download all 35 MB directly from the company for US$99.95.

Features & Benefits: ecBuilder is essentially a Web site template that allows business users to set up a Web by filling out an “11-wizard” questionnaire. The process can take as little as 15 to 20 minutes according to Multiactive, if the business comes prepared with the necessary company information and marketing messages.

Here is what’s included in ecBuilder:

• · Storefront page featuring the company profile, name and logo
• · Contact page with company address, telephone number, fax number and email address
• · Marketing page for marketing messages
• · Catalog pages featuring a Web page and graphic for each product or service in the catalog
• · Orders and inquiries can be submitted in secure or insecure mode (with or without SSL encryption)
• · Orders come to the business owner in an encrypted message that can be decoded using ecBuilder or Maximizer software
• · Credit card number input, but no authorization; a bank could customize the package to add real-time authorization on the back-end
• · Integrated with Maximizer contact management software; customer info and orders can be downloadable directly into Maximizer
• · Web site changes can automatically be uploaded to the bank or ISP server hardcoded into ecBuilder
• · Automatic meta-tag creation based on key words input by user (see OBR 1/98)
• · Accepts various graphic file formats
• · Statistical reporting from Web site log files
• · Business owners can enter HTML code directly into template forms if desired
• · Supports page layout programs such as Microsoft FrontPage
• · The site is automatically submitted to Internet search engines
• · User can change text/graphics 24 hours per day at no cost
• · Can choose from 30 template styles and 18 color schemes (total of 540 options)

• · You can be the first in your market to offer free “ecommerce Web sites” to your clients — good PR and brand positioning
• · Low price: as low as $10 per unit initially with NO monthly maintenance fees
• · Multiactive handles end-user technical support at no cost to bank or end user
• · Can be co-branded
• · Working with a solid company that has produced award-winning contact-management software
• · Attract new merchants looking to become involved in ecommerce
• · Increase credit card transaction revenues
• · Strengthen relationships with current merchants
• · Provide a value-added service that keeps you ahead of your competitors
• · Potential incremental revenue
• · Works with existing FTP services, no additional hardware required
• · Can be bundled with other products or services
• · Hard coding your URL into the product interface ensures merchant customers continue to rely on your services
• · Access to Multiactive’s engineering and technical support
• · Cooperative promotions with ecBuilder

Cons:

• · Difficulty in explaining the product to your small business clients
• · ecBuilder looks like what it is, a low-budget Web solution that works for only the simplest applications
• · There are hundreds of places on the Web to build free Web sites, from America Online to GeoCities
• · The ecBuilder development tools reside on the business owner’s hard drive, so changes and customization are more difficult than Web-based solutions
• · Difficult to get small business clients started; who is going to help them through the initial learning curve?
• · No built-in integration with card processing
• · Customer service issues; Multiactive provides tech support, but other sticky problems such as lost orders could end up at the bank for resolution

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Financial Institution Opportunities:

• · resell ecBuilder and/or Maximizer as standard shrink-wrapped software (either at cost or with a markup)
• · resell as a service with monthly and/or annual fees
• · bundle into a package of credit card processing services to merchant clients
• · bundle into a package of checking account and online banking services to any small business customer

Contact: Frank Hart is Corporate Sales Manager (Bank & Financial), (604) 899-2831, frank.hart@multiactive.com

Providing tools for ecommerce fits with banks’ traditional role helping businesses with payment and cash management issues. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Using Web-based solutions, ecommerce services can provide an entrée into a whole new service category, that of running the entire virtual accounting and customer management functions for clients (see OBR 9/98).

There are a number of ecommerce solutions available on the market: iMall www.imall.com which recently inked a 10-year deal and equity investment from First Data Corp.; Viaweb recently purchased by Yahoo! and renamed the Yahoo! Store <store.yahoo.com>, iCat www.icat.com America Online, www.aol.com Virtual Emporium www.virtualemporium.com and many others. We don’t know which solution is best, but we can say the concept is valid.

We believe ecBuilder is worth consideration for several reasons:

• · published by a company with a proven track record in serving small business needs with Maximizer
• · current and future integration with Maximizer provides additional productivity tools
• · the company can tap into the code and development efforts of its flagship Maximizer to more easily add features to ecBuilder

While ecBuilder seems a bit lightweight in its current incarnation, an improved version 4.0 is due out this year, and there are numerous enhancements in the pipeline. If you are serious about entering the market for ecommerce services, this might be a low-cost way to get your foot in the door.

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Fleet sponsors the Emerging Companies mini-site at Boston.com and displays this banner which rotates among several others.

Fleet Bank’s Storefronts: The First Bank-Branded Turnkey Ecommerce Web Service

The Company: Fleet Bank (Boston, MA; $85 billion) has 1,200 branches, 350 of which have been designated Business Solution Centers. Fleet serves more than 400,000 small business clients across its seven-state franchise extending from New Jersey to Maine. It’s the largest small business lender in the Northeast and eighth largest in the country (Source: American Banker, 12/97). Electronic Press Services Group www.epsg.com built the storefront template which uses Netscape’s ECXprt as the platform. CyberCash provides secure payment services.

The Product: Fleet provides turnkey Internet “store fronts” for businesses to both advertise and sell wares on the Web. It features secure order entry with real-time credit card processing courtesy of Fleet merchant services. The product began a limited pilot in June 1997, and was officially launched at Internet World in March 1998. It’s advertised, in rotation with other small business products, at Boston.com (screenshot above).

Features & Benefits: Storefronts is a quick and easy Web solution allowing small businesses to publish a catalogue and book orders on the Web, it includes:

• · Web-based credit card processing
• · secure environment for payments certified by the International Computer Security Association
• · Verisign digital certificate registration
• · domain name registration
• · search engine registration
• · online site support
• · Web site hosting
• · management reports

Cost: Set-up: $995 to $1,495 depending on design complexity; monthly fees vary by the size of the
product catalogue posted:
$99/mo for up to 25 products

$149/mo for 25 to 150 products

$249/mo for 150 to 500 products

Contacts: Anna Sabasteanski is President of Electronic Press. At Fleet, Norman J. DeLuca is Managing Director, Business and Entrepreneurial Services Group; Blaise Heltai is Director of Online Financial Services,
(617) 346-4000, blaise_l_heltai@fleet.com