7/27/00
Concentric Selected as Application Infrastructure Provider by e-know.net
Concentric’s Data Center, Network Operations Expertise and Disaster Recovery Capabilities Enable e-know.net to Deliver Business Resource Applications Over the Internet
SAN JOSE, CA - Concentric Network, a Nextlink Communications Company (Nasdaq: NXLK), and a leading provider of e-business solutions for growing companies, today announced it has been selected by e-know.net, one of the leading European Application Service Providers (ASP), to supply application infrastructure services. e-know.net will utilize Concentric’s application infrastructure provider (AIP) solution - including server management hosting, application monitoring and dedicated Internet access - to securely offer business resource applications over the Internet.
The decision to outsource the application infrastructure services to Concentric through ConcentricAIP™, allows e-know.net to focus on its core strengths of application management, application customer support and customer acquisition. Moreover, this solution speeds eknow.net’s time-to-market and reduces its cost-of-entry into the ASP space. As part of the three year deal, Concentric will provide 7x24 server and application management, as well as dedicated Internet access, for the manufacturing control, production control, finance, distribution and invoicing system applications offered by e-know.net. For added security, Concentric is providing e-know.net with disaster recovery services to ensure the integrity and reliability of their hosted applications.
“We conducted extensive customer research to establish the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) in the UK,” said David Redwood, CEO of e-know.net. “We found that security and reliability are of paramount importance to companies when choosing an ASP. As a result, we chose to partner with Concentric, in order to offer our customers a highly reliable 24x7 hosted application service.”
Access to e-know.net is free of capital charge, with customers paying a monthly charge based on the number of users. Therefore, these network-based applications relieve the customer of purchasing hardware and software, finding technical staff, and the continual cycle of hardware upgrades. Instead customers gain access to a fully managed solution, alleviating the need to expend time and capital on internally implemented and maintained applications. In addition, customers gain the flexibility to scale their application needs in accordance with business growth.
With Dataquest Market Intelligence forecasting the worldwide ASP market to reach $22.7 billion by 2003 (May 2000 report), ConcentricAIP services are well positioned to emerge as a key enabler for the rapid growth of hosted applications,” commented Rhian Ball, Marketing Director at Concentric. “Our comprehensive portfolio of operations and network services allow ASPs to focus on meeting their customer's needs while gaining the cost advantages and efficiencies of an outsourced infrastructure.”
About e-know.net
e-know.net, backed by venture capitalist 3i, is one of Europe's leading Application Service Providers (ASP). Formed at the end of 1999, the company provides rental of B2B enterprise application software to small and medium sized enterprises (SME) predominantly in the manufacturing and distribution industries, via the Internet. Members of the e-know.net community have access to finance and invoicing systems, distribution and logistics modules as well as manufacturing and production control systems to satisfy all of their business application needs. For further information about e-know.net and the solutions mix available for SME's, please access the web site at www.e-know.net.
About Concentric Network Corporation
Concentric Network, an operating unit of Nextlink Communications, is a global provider of leading data and Internet services. Together with Nextlink, the company offers local and long distance voice, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access, Web hosting and e-commerce, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), dedicated access, global transit and application infrastructure services for delivering applications over the Internet or a VPN.
Nextlink has assembled an unrivaled set of facilities-based broadband networks that, when complete, will serve much of the United States, Canada and Europe. In the United States, Nextlink has more than 430,000 metro fiber miles in operation and a 384,000 fiber-mile inter-city network under construction. The Company is also North America’s largest holder of fixed broadband wireless spectrum, with licenses covering 95 percent of the population of the 30 largest U.S. cities and a partnership with licenses covering all of the top cities in Canada. Nextlink has also agreed in principle to acquire more than 80,000 metro fiber miles in Europe to serve the London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris markets and an 88,000 fiber-mile pan-European fiber network connecting 21 major European cities and transatlantic capacity that will eventually expand to 10 Gbps.
Publicly traded Nextlink (NASDAQ:NXLK) is headquartered in McLean, Virginia and Concentric is located in San Jose, California. For more information visit www.nextlink.com or www.concentric.net or contact Public Relations at publicrelations@concentric.com.
For more information contact:
Jenna Dee / XO Communications
Media and Industry Analysts
408-817-2297
