EdgeMatrix acquires Netlife Asia to solidify position as multichannel commerce powerhouse

EdgeMatrix, the technology company specializing in multichannel delivery products, today announced the acquisition of Netlife Asia, the foremost e-finance solutions provider in Asia Pacific, to evolve its development from leading-edge multichannel delivery to multichannel commerce and delivery technologies.

EdgeMatrix, the technology company specializing in multichannel delivery products, today announced the acquisition of Netlife Asia, the foremost e-finance solutions provider in Asia Pacific, to evolve its development from leading-edge multichannel delivery to multichannel commerce and delivery technologies.

This initiative underscores the strengths of both companies through a strategic and complementary match of technology, expertise, and management talent. The deal will be undertaken via a combination of purchase and shares exchange.

Netlife Asia¡¦s extensive expertise in digital commerce stems from their involvement in the financial services industry. The FSI sector is represented by players such as banking, securities, insurance and credit card companies. It is currently one of the most aggressive sectors in leveraging the benefits of multichannel commerce, where financial services can be accessed by customers via different digital communications channels such as the Web and wireless devices.

The combined entity will be able to immediately leverage a broader product mix, stronger technical R&D teams, more extensive business partner and customer portfolios, as well as expanded market presence. Both companies are already leaders in their respective arenas within the Asia Pacific region, and the integration provides an even stronger foundation for expansion to the global market.

"This initiative further empowers EdgeMatrix to deliver our multichannel vision by extending our domain expertise and strengthening our continued focus in the telecommunications and financial sectors. This also enables us to monetize the pervasive devices environment by adding significant transactional depth to leverage the benefits of multichannel commerce," said Dinesh Bhatia, President and CEO of EdgeMatrix.

"Consumers of financial services today are offered a myriad of access points. Even basic tasks such as checking one's account balance or trading a stock can be performed on the telephone, a personal computer or an Internet-enabled mobile handphone. EdgeMatrix is further empowered to deliver our multichannel vision to the global market by integrating Netlife Asia¡¦s extensive transactional knowledge base with our breakthrough multichannel communications technologies which are today GPRS-ready and immediately scalable to 3G. The need for these types of mobile commerce transactions will become increasingly apparent."

The fusion of IT visions

Both EdgeMatrix and Netlife Asia are well-known leaders in their respective multichannel and commerce technology fields.

Established since 1996, EdgeMatrix provides multichannel technology that allows businesses to extend their access points to their customers and increase revenue streams and service levels.

EdgeMatrix has been globally recognized for its leading-edge technology including its m-commerce-enabling WAPman microbrowser, which is the world's most popular PalmOS microbrowser download on the Internet. The company has also led first-mover implementations in Asia. EdgeMatrix's multichannel technology drives mobile service offerings of United Overseas Bank, Bank of America, MobileOne, boom.com, DiGi Telecom, Satelindo, MBF Cards, Optus, and was also chosen for Heineken's extremely successfully breakthrough mobile marketing campaigns in Australia. In China, EdgeMatrix has enabled hundreds of financial trading houses to provide mobile trading via its Xgate multichannel server.

Founded in 1998, Netlife Asia¡¦s singular goal was to become the foremost e-finance solutions provider. In a short span of two years, Netlife Asia has successfully developed and deployed its suite of e-finance applications encompassing banking, brokerage, electronics bill presentment and payment solutions. Netlife Asia currently powers over 150 companies, including Dah Sing Bank, Stock Exchange of Thailand, Citibank, Dell, Apple, Cybersource, Intel, Systems@Work, Motorola, Sony, Phillips Securities, and National Computer Systems.

"Both organizations have strong reputation in delivering highly-available and scalable solutions to demanding customer needs across a wide variety of key business verticals like telecommunications and financial services," said Tobias Pelzer, CEO of Netlife Asia. "From our market experience, the FSI is one of the early adopters of EdgeMatrix's solutions, and Netlife Asia brings with it the knowledge, the products, and the solutions that this vertical needs. Our finance expertise will greatly add to EdgeMatrix¡¦s prowess in delivering new-era multichannel commerce solutions. For example, our products have set the new industry benchmark of providing sub-5-second performance scaled to more than 1,000 concurrent user-base.¡¨

Dinesh added: "This acquisition is a natural extension of EdgeMatrix's business reach. The multitude of combined solutions that we already have and the expansion of our addressable market, clearly demonstrates the immense potential of this strategic initiative. By incorporating, for instance, Netlife Asia¡¦s existing commerce technologies with our Xgate communications server, we create a best-of-breed multichannel commerce system that is immediately deployable to any institution. Aside from currently-existing commerce solutions, our combined R&D team will continue to develop and refine new digital commerce applications, including mobile micropayment, with an eye to multichannel deployment."

Tobias and his management team will continue to look after the functions of the Netlife Asia business unit within EdgeMatrix under the leadership of Dinesh.

Pushing for Asia Pacific domination and global expansion

Currently, EdgeMatrix has offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Australia, India and Taiwan. Netlife Asia, with its headquarters also in Singapore, has regional offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan. The acquisition of Netlife Asia is an important cornerstone in EdgeMatrix¡¦s leadership position in Asia Pacific and its global rollout.

Dinesh said: ¡§EdgeMatrix will benefit from the existing customer-pool, channel network, and Netlife Asia¡¦s strategic alliance bases. Netlife Asia also injects a pool of dedicated and experienced team of personnel who will strengthen EdgeMatrix¡¦s existing presence specifically in Hong Kong and Malaysia. The combined entity will establish new presence in Thailand and China, and will have a total headcount of nearly 350 experienced staff in seven established marketplaces in Asia Pacific.¡¨

The integration process is expected to be completed by end of 2001.