Instruction Set Selected by New England Business Service to Develop a Customized Learning Solution

Business Wire, Oct 5, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

NATICK, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 2000

Curriculum Kicks Off NEBS WebStart(TM) Employee Training Program

Instruction Set, a leading Education Service Provider(TM) (E*SP(TM)), announced today that New England Business Service, Inc. (NEBS), a leading business-to-business direct marketing company, has selected Instruction Set to develop a customized suite of Instructor-led and Web-based training courses. The courseware, customized for NEBS web development environment and targeted at NEBS employees includes topics such as HTML, Java, J2EE, Oracle, and XML.

With this agreement, New England Business Service will initiate its Web-based employee training program, WebStart(TM). Aimed at providing a more comprehensive training solution for its employees, NEBS is working with Instruction Set to offer a 17 week intensive program of Instructor-led classroom training combined with complementary Web-based training (WBT). NEBS employees will be able to put concepts into action by developing web applications in a simulated work environment. The participants will also have access to the Instruction Set's WBT courses before, during and after the traditional classroom training.

"Instruction Set's heritage in Instructor-led training combined with their extensive Web-based training courseware made them a natural choice for our vendor selection," said, Jeff Angus, Senior Vice President of Information Systems at New England Business Service, Inc. "Their ability to customize the courses to our web development environment and deliver on a strict timeline were key criteria in our decision-making," added Angus.

"A primary reason that NEBS is a clear leader in their market is their dedication and investment in web technology and human capital," said Stephen Gentile, Vice President of Marketing at Instruction Set. "By developing such an extensive employee training program, NEBS will be ensuring a high level of customer support and satisfaction for years to come. We are proud to work with them to deliver a customized ILT and WBT training solution," added Gentile.

About New England Business Service, Inc.

New England Business Service, Inc. is a leading business-to-business direct marketing company with 2.6 million active small business customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France. The Company supplies a wide variety of business products and services, which are marketed through direct mail, telesales, a direct sales force, dealers and the Internet. The Company's broad array of distinct products are uniquely designed to help small businesses manage and grow their companies, and include a business forms, greeting cards, personalized apparel, shipping and packaging supplies and advertising specialties categories. NEBS also offers a variety of web-based services, including interactive business building and management tools and many free web-based services. More information about New England Business Service, Inc., and access to its products and services are available at the Company's Web site at www.nebs.com.

About Instruction Set, Inc.

Headquartered in Natick, MA, Instruction Set, Inc. is a leading Education Service Provider(TM) (E*SP(TM)) offering corporations and individuals integrated learning solutions in the field of information technology. Incorporated in 1993, Instruction Set develops and markets more than 400 stand-alone web-based technical training courses in addition to offering customized, instructor-led technical training curriculums with integrated web-based training support. Instruction Set is uniquely qualified to provide turnkey technical training solutions that require minimal up front investments, are highly scalable and customizable, and deliver a measurable ROI. Instruction Set offers a full set of training solutions and services from needs assessment to curriculum development to hosting and delivery of instructor-led training, web-based training and customized education consulting. Instruction Set's customers include Fortune 1000 companies, emerging corporations and leading dot-com companies such as: Bowstreet, Computer Science Corporation, Critical Path, Gillette, Hewlett-Packard, Kana, Kaplancollege.com, MBNA, Monster.com, Verizon and Vitria Technology

Additional information about Instruction Set, its products, clients and services can be found at http://www.instructionset.com or by calling 800-874-6738.