BrightStores Integrates StrikeIron's Sales and Use Tax Web Service for e-Commerce Shopping Cart Applications; Provides Brightstores' Customers with Real-Time Access to Accurate Sales Tax Information

Business Wire, May 2, 2006

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- StrikeIron Inc., provider of the Web Services Marketplace, today announced that BrightStores has integrated StrikeIron's Tax Data Systems Sales and Use Tax Web Service into their shopping cart application. The Sales and Use Tax Web service allows users to instantly receive the sales and use tax rates for any ZIP or postal code in the United States or Canada. Because the data is delivered via a Web service and StrikeIron continuously updates the source database, BrightStores never has to reintegrate updated tax data into their shopping cart application.

"With StrikeIron's Sales & Use Tax Web service, our customers simply enter a ZIP code and instantly receive the real-time, accurate sales tax rate," said Dan Halama, President of BrightStores. "By integrating with Web services we are able to save our customers time, effort, and money, yet always deliver the most accurate sales tax rate."

Bright Stores provides scalable Company Store solutions for the promotional products industry. Their stores include a wide variety of activated features, which meet the demanding needs of both smaller and larger clients. With the StrikeIron Sales and Use Tax Web Service, they were able to seamlessly add live data into to their application by simply connecting to the web service to extract the data it provides. BrightStores ecommerce merchants only pay for the sales and use tax data for the customers that buy from their stores and they no longer have to worry about maintaining an up-to-date database of sales and use tax rates.

"StrikeIron's growth is being fueled by software vendors recognizing the value of integrating Web services into their applications. We are dedicated to providing the most reliable and trusted Web services on the market today, as well as making it easy for our software partners to integrate these Web services into their own applications," said Bob Brauer, President and CEO of StrikeIron. "Reducing complexity and providing more functionality quickly, as well as providing an additional revenue stream, will help our software partners find success with our Web Services Marketplace."

About BrightStores

BrightStores e-commerce products have been designed and built by former distributors (with the help of some really smart technical guys) specifically for the promotional products industry. We understand your business, speak your language and believe our product addresses the unique needs of custom decorating and the custom decorating online ordering process. For more information, visit www.brightstores.com.

About StrikeIron

StrikeIron is the leader in the commercialization of Web Services, providing the world's largest library of externally available plug-and-play Web services. Built on top of a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use Web Services Commerce Platform, the Marketplace serves as a place for providers and consumers of XML-based Web services to publish, subscribe to, and build applications and Web sites using a diverse set of Web services.

Enabling a business model for the Programmable Web, the core technology provides self-service publishing and consumption of Web services, micro-transactions and usage-based billing, software infrastructure, multiple productivity tools, seamless integration for both individual customers and software technology partners, and a consistency of usage from multiple Web services across multiple vendors. The Aurora Funds, Inc. and NC IDEA provided funding for StrikeIron after recognizing the significant opportunity to invest in a technology firm leading innovation of the Programmable Web and Web 2.0. For more information, visit www.strikeiron.com.