Actioneer Inc. Announces Actioneer Smart Portal 3.1; New Method for Accessing Popular Web Services.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 14, 1999--

Actioneer, Inc. today announced the Actioneer(R) Smart Portal(TM) service, version 3.1, which eliminates time-consuming "point and click" navigation for connecting with online merchants, Web-based information sources and electronic organizers.

The new Actioneer Smart Portal 3.1 release greatly expands the list of available e-service connectors, providing easy access to over 100 popular Web services. It also enables users to create a custom set of Web connectors tailored to their interests, buying habits and location. Actioneer Smart Portal 3.1 is free, and debuts today on ZDNet LaunchPad, www.zdnet.com.

Introduced in June 1999, the Actioneer Smart Portal offers the first new method for accessing the Web since the introduction of the browser. Through a single mouse click, users can access popular Web sites and services quickly and easily, including online stock quote services, ticket agencies, book and CD merchants, local movie times, TV listings, concert schedules and more.

"The Actioneer Smart Portal is an easy-to-use interface that saves time when accessing information or making purchases from the Web," said Tom Hagan, president. "Because it also works with electronic organizers like Lotus Notes, Microsoft Outlook and Palm Desktop, the Smart Portal serves as the easiest method for accessing electronic services both on the desktop and on the Web."

The new Actioneer Smart Portal 3.1 service provides users a flexible, customizable way to access the Web. Users can now tailor their set of connectors -- the pipelines for transferring information to and from electronic services on the desktop or on the Web -- to better fit the way they use the Internet. For instance, users can select their favorite online florist from the catalog on the Actioneer Web site, www.actioneer.com, or choose to activate them all, including Proflowers, 1-800-Flowers, FTD Florist and PC Flowers. Similarly, they can activate one or all three travel providers, including Travelocity, BizTravel and Priceline.com

Actioneer Inc. has made available more than 100 new connectors in a growing Connector Catalog, updated every few days on the Actioneer Web site. The catalog provides users with an array of services and products from which to choose, including links to references such as white and yellow pages, almanacs, thesaurus, encyclopedias, maps and translation services, as well as access to stock quotes or stock portfolios from Yahoo! Finance, Lycos Finance and Quicken.com.

Connectors are conveniently organized within categories, many with some depth. For instance, news source choices include ZDNet News, ZDNet Anchor Desk, Yahoo! News, C/Net News, Lycos News, and CNN Headline News. Bookseller choices include Amazon.com and Borders.com. Other retail connectors include online grocery providers, toy stores and entertainment, consumer electronics and software merchants, as well as video and DVD stores, including Amazon.com, Borders.com and Tower Records.com.

Users can now store their personal profile information, including name, city, state and zip code in the Preferences dialog, enabling the Smart Portal 3.1 service to perform even smarter tasks for them. Using profile information, the Actioneer Smart Portal takes an action message like "get movie times" and returns with movie schedules for the user's city, without requiring the name of the city in the request.

The new capabilities for easing access to Web services builds on Actioneer's success with providing easy access to electronic organizers, including Palm(TM) handheld organizers and Palm Desktop, Microsoft Outlook(R) and Lotus Notes(R) desktop organizers. Lotus Notes and Domino Advisor magazine granted Actioneer its Gold-level "Cool New Product" award; ZDNet and PC Magazine named Actioneer for Palm handhelds "Product of the Year", saying "Actioneer is one of the most innovative products to arrive this year for any platform."

Connectors are also available for the Lotus Notes R5 calendar and ToDo lists, as well as Microsoft Outlook and Palm Desktop electronic organizers and for Lotus Notes 4.6.

Using Actioneer

Using Actioneer is simple. To access services available through the Smart Portal, users never need to open a browser or navigate to any site -- they click open Actioneer and enter a short action message; Actioneer detects user-defined keywords in the message to dispatch the request to the proper Web destination.

To fetch a current stock quote for IBM, for example, users need only click open Actioneer's note-like window and type "sq IBM". Detecting the keyword "sq", Actioneer goes to the Web and requests the current stock quote for IBM from an online service, which performs the search and presents the results.

Actioneer's patent pending technology also streamlines access to electronic organizers. To capture an item for entry into the Lotus Notes Calendar, for instance, users simply click open the Actioneer window and type "Sales meeting Fri 4 pm". Actioneer automatically interprets the text and presents for verification a display showing that the action message is to be sent to their Friday Calendar page as a 4:00 p.m. appointment. One click then enters the information instantly into the Notes Calendar, whether Notes is open or not.

The Actioneer Smart Portal 3.1 is free, available now for download from ZDNet LaunchPad, www.zdnet.com, and later at www.actioneer.com. Actioneer is currently developing Actioneer Pro, a forthcoming release of upgrade connector sets to provide enhanced Calendar, ToDo list, Journal and functionality for Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop and Microsoft Outlook users. The Actioneer Pro upgrade connector sets will be priced at under $30.

Actioneer Inc. provides products and services that simplify access to online information services, electronic organizers and Web-based merchants. Actioneer is bundled with Lotus Notes R5, and with various IBM and Palm Computing platform products.

Recently, Actioneer was chosen as the top-rated product for the Palm Platform by PC Computing, Fast Company, Fortune, ZDNet, and others. Red Herring and Upside Magazine have listed Actioneer as one of the top private Internet companies, and Computerworld chose Actioneer as one of its "100 Hot Emerging Companies". Actioneer, Inc. has offices in San Francisco and Cambridge, Mass.