Melita Renames Company To eShare Technologies And Outlines New Company Initiatives

Melita International, a provider of unified Web and telephony customer contact management solutions, announced that its Board of Directors has voted to change its corporate name to 'eShare Technologies, Inc.', effective immediately.

Commencing the week of October 11th, 1999, the company will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol "ESHR".

Aleksander Szlam, chairman and chief executive officer, eShare Technologies commented, "Changing our name to eShare Technologies is the first step in strategically expanding our leadership position from telephony-based markets to include high-growth Web-based markets. Our recent acquisition of eShare Technologies, in combination with our core strengths, provides us with an enormous opportunity to be at the forefront of the emerging Web-based customer service management market. This corporate identity reflects those strengths."

"In addition to our corporate identity change, over the coming weeks we will introduce major, company-wide initiatives," Szlam continued. "We will be announcing several key management changes to further unify Melita and eShare and demonstrate our commitment to growth markets. 

The company will also be unveiling a strategic plan to integrate the companies' technologies to create the industry's first closed-loop Web and telephony solution. 

This approach will position eShare to take full advantage of the emerging Internet customer communication market by providing businesses an opportunity to leverage the Web to enhance their competitive market position."

As a combined company, eShare Technologies will be expanding its focus beyond its $700 million annual addressable telephony-based market to an expected $6 billion market by 2002 for unified Web and telephony customer contact solutions.

As part of the new management structure, James Tito, former chief executive officer of eShare Technologies will become the new company's vice chairman with a focus on driving the Company's Web-based product strategy. "

eShare Technologies brings award-winning Internet customer care solutions (including NetAgent -- the industry's leading e-commerce customer interaction solution), a strong customer base, and Internet experience. 

Combined with Melita's leadership position in the customer contact marketplace, we have created the only company that can provide a transparent, unified, and comprehensive solution for all customer contacts, including telephony, email management, real-time Web communications, and other multi-media applications," Tito commented.

With the acquisition of eShare, Melita acquired 1,500 customers in the Internet business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets, including 1-800-Flowers, AOL, Sony, Lycos, Snap.com, eMedia, Sprint, NutriSystems, AT&T WorldNet, HealthShop.com and Talbots. 

These customers use eShare's applications for building customer loyalty and retention, via live internet help, email customer support management, Web hosting, and community development tools such as bulletin boards, chat rooms, and instant messaging.