Accesspoint Acquires Black Sun Graphics; E-Commerce Solutions Provider Takes Graphic Design In-House

Business Wire, June 7, 2000

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 7, 2000

Accesspoint Corporation (OTCBB:ASAP), a leading manufacturer of e-commerce transaction solutions, announced today that it has acquired its long time partner, Black Sun Graphics Inc. The strategic acquisition brings Black Sun's talented graphic designers, animators and programmers under the Accesspoint corporate umbrella. This will enable Accesspoint to respond more quickly to the design and programming needs of its clients and to price custom design work more aggressively, thus increasing profit margins. Working together Accesspoint and Black Sun now provide all types of corporate customers with the innovative technical design, programming and business development services that enable these clients to benefit from the Internetization of their entire enterprise. The company has moved all of its operations to Accesspoint's headquarters in Irvine, Calif., in order to be able to work more closely with Accesspoint's programmers and clients.

"Black Sun Graphics has been our main design partner for several years, helping with all of the design aspects of our Merchant Manager programs," says Tom Djokovich, CEO of Accesspoint Corporation. "They know our programs and what type of functionality our clients need in their sites. By now acquiring the whole company, we can dramatically increase our overall programming capacity. This is necessary because of our rapid growth, which requires a continuous addition of new resources."

The market for Accesspoint's integrated Web design/e-commerce/transaction processing services will continue to grow rapidly. Accesspoint belongs to a new generation of consulting firms that are moving beyond the offerings of traditional Web design shops, rolling together many elements such as the design work of creating sites, the integration functions of building a corporate infrastructure and the outsourcing capabilities of running it all for a client (source CNET's (Nasdaq:CNET) news.com).

According to Jupiter Communications (Nasdaq:JPTR), the demand for these services will outstrip the supply over the next couple of years. Recently, many other major technology companies have announced plans similar to those of Accesspoint's Black Sun acquisition. A week ago, IBM (NYSE:IBM) said it had teamed with a number of Internet services firms that have already made strides in the booming market.

Jupiter's B-To-B Infrastructure research service says that U.S. companies will more than double their annual expenditures on Internet-based infrastructure and related business operations and maintenance (O&M) in the next four years. These expenditures are expected to hit a gigantic $348 billion per year by 2003.

Web design market continues to explode as more and more functionality is added to the existing sites. In addition to the traditional site design, all related industries are booming. The wireless Internet access alone is creating a huge demand for WAP-based programming, as approximately 600 mobile phones will have Internet access by 2003 (Source: Yankee Group). Accesspoint announced its owned WAP initiatives earlier this spring to capitalize on the explosion of the wireless market.

Accesspoint (http://www.accesspoint.com) provides a state-of-the-art network for secure e-commerce transactions to thousands of merchants worldwide. The company supports this infrastructure with a dynamic database-driven e-commerce solution. This includes a premier transaction engine, one of the only certified Level-III business-to-business purchase networks, and a full complement of e-commerce services which enable its customers to implement profitable online business strategies without having to support all of the in-house technologies and framework that are normally required. In addition to its existing base of online merchants, Accesspoint's corporate roster of strategic partners includes Equifax (NYSE:EFX), NOVA (NYSE:NIS), First National Bank of Omaha and National Data Corporation (NYSE:NDC).

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