AREA COMPANY GETS OK TO TEST INTERNET-BASED POSTAGE METER.Byline: Ben Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer Giving new meaning to the term e-mail, the U.S. Postal Service The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) processes and delivers mail to individuals and businesses within the United States. The service seeks to improve its performance through the development of efficient mail-handling systems and operates its own planning and engineering programs. has approved testing computer-based postage-metering technology developed by a small, privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. in Westlake Village. StampMaster Inc., the second company to gain such approval, won it Tuesday. In March, Palo Alto-based E-Stamp Inc., which is partially owned by Microsoft Corp. and Compaq Computers, began testing a system for buying and printing postage with a personal computer printer. But unlike E-Stamp's system, which requires users to purchase additional hardware to plug into their machines, the StampMaster system is Internet-based. Because of that, some analysts say StampMaster has a temporary advantage over competitors. ``The hardwareless solution will appeal to consumers for the lower cost and easier setup, but E-Stamp will eventually have it too,'' said analyst Vernon Keenan Vernon M. Keenan is the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), that state's primary investigation and law enforcement agency. He was voted one of the top 100 most influential Georgians by Georgia Trend magazine. at San Francisco-based Keenan Vision Inc. And because of E-Stamp's Microsoft and Compaq connections, Keenan said, it has a long-term competitive advantage in distribution. ``E-Stamp overall is in stronger position because of its partnerships,'' he said. ``Any neat new technology is dependent on a good distribution strategy.'' Keenan predicts the electronic postage market will total just $18.5 million next year, but balloon to $2.1 billion by 2003. In addition to StampMaster and E-Stamp, postage giant Pitney Bowes  This article or section is written like an .Please help [ rewrite this article] from a neutral point of view. Mark blatant advertising for , using . , which now controls more than 80 percent of the postage-metering market, is developing an Internet-based postage system. To its advantage, StampMaster is the furthest along in what its president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. , John Payne, describes as the long and arduous process of getting Postal Service postal service, arrangements made by a government for the transmission of letters, packages, and periodicals, and for related services. Early courier systems for government use were organized in the Persian Empire under Cyrus, in the Roman Empire, and in medieval approval to operate an Internet-based system. StampMaster has begun testing its service among 25 individuals and businesses in the Washington, D.C., area. In three or four months, the testing will be expanded to about 500 customers in the Washington area and in San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , Payne said. If all goes well, he said, the StampMaster system could be available to consumers by the first quarter of 1999. |
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