Interview Opportunity: NBCi's Acquistion of AllBusiness.com: What It Says About Changes in the B2B Market

Business Wire, Feb 2, 2000

Business Editors

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2000

Michael Shulman

Former Consultant to XOOM.com (now NBCi)

Current B2B Web Entrepreneur

Though there may be hundreds of B2B web sites, they won't all succeed. NBC Internet Inc. (NBCi), the television network's Internet arm, announced Tuesday it would expand its services to small and medium-sized businesses by acquiring AllBusiness.com for approximately $225 million in stock. What does this mean for NBCi? What made Allbusiness.com stand out from its competitors? What does it take for a B2B to get the kind of respect and market attention it deserves among a sea of competitors?

Michael Shulman, co-founder and CEO of AtYourBusiness.com, and former business development consultant to XOOM.com, is available to discuss what sets these hundreds of B2Bs apart in this $671 billion industry (according to the Boston Consulting Group). Additionally, he can comment on the sister sector - the human resource outsourcing industry, which generated $13.9 billion in 1999 and is expected to reach $37.6 billion by 2003, according to Dataquest.

AtYourBusiness.com is a Web-based site and service that enables business owners to manage their employees, stay in compliance with government regulations and quickly access a wide range of business services from top-tier providers. The company was founded by Michael Shulman, an entrepreneur and business development consultant to XOOM.com and Phil Gross, a former CFO of America Online (NYSE:AOL). AtYourBusiness.com is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland.