Fatbrain.com Revolutionizes the Way Corporations Manage, Market and Distribute Content With Online Information Exchanges.

Business Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 28, 2000

Web-based one-stop shop for corporate document management

Just as the Internet has changed the way people everywhere communicate with each other and has provided new ways to buy and sell products, a major shift is about to occur in the way companies manage documents. Fatbrain.com(tm) (Nasdaq:FATB) today introduced a revolutionary new way for businesses to manage, market and distribute corporate information. Fatbrain.com's new Information Exchange product suite combines Fatbrain.com's e-commerce expertise, secure digital publishing technology known as eMatter, comprehensive professional bookstore, established print-on-demand infrastructure and world-class distribution and fulfillment services to deliver a powerful and complete Web-based solution for outsourcing mission-critical internal and external corporate information.

Despite long-rumored predictions of the paperless office, today virtually every corporation manages large amounts of external content, from books to technical and product documentation to a variety of internal corporate documents such as annual reports and employee handbooks, the vast majority of it still distributed on paper. For many corporations, the volume and complexity of managing all of this information is extremely costly and a distraction from their core business expertise. Using Fatbrain.com's new Information Exchange product suite, these corporations can now outsource the management, marketing and distribution of this information while providing faster and better service to those requiring the information.

According to CAP Ventures, U.S. corporations will spend an estimated $54 billion with external providers in their quest to more effectively manage, produce and distribute internally produced content by 2003 (Summer, 1999). With the launch of Information Exchange, Fatbrain.com is well-positioned to gain a substantial share of this huge market by helping corporations to maintain their focus on core businesses. Since Fatbrain.com's Information Exchange can deliver content digitally or on paper with equal ease and a high level of security, it offers the unique benefit of helping the customer migrate towards the promise of the "paperless" office.

"Every corporation is a publisher and increasingly faces challenges resulting from document publishing and warehousing to distribution and reporting," said Dennis Capovilla, president and COO for Fatbrain.com. "Now, for the first time, corporations can really utilize the Internet to manage all these functions through a dedicated yet outsourced information exchange removing this operation from the company overhead while providing better service and lowering costs. In addition to printed publications, our information exchanges introduce the convenience and simplicity of digitally published documents for corporate communications, enabling instant electronic delivery and significantly reducing printing costs."

"Fatbrain.com is an excellent example of new players that are revolutionizing the world of printing and publishing," said Charles A. Pesko, managing director of CAP Ventures, a strategic consulting firm providing consulting and market research to providers and users of business communications technologies and services. "Building on its heritage of providing mission critical information to companies via its Web-based bookstore, Fatbrain.com has moved rapidly into the document outsourcing arena by broadening its offerings to provide an end-to-end information management, marketing and distribution solution for businesses, allowing paper and digital documents to co-exist in an organized and highly-accessible fashion."

"Fatbrain.com's Information Exchange solution enables paper-based and digital-based internal and external documents to co-exist," said Cindy Hill, manager, SunLibrary of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "The Information Exchange provides an elegant interface and a comprehensive site for all our corporate information needs."

Fatbrain.com's Corporate Information Exchange Provides a One-stop Solution

Through the Information Exchange solution, all internal and external publications are cataloged, tracked, published and delivered via an easy-to-use, custom intranet-based or Internet Web site. Publications can be quickly and easily accessed through powerful and easy-to-use searching and browsing tools and economical delivery options.

The Information Exchange works like an online bookstore for corporate publications, newsletters, research reports, marketing and sales brochures, product manuals, white papers, and other internal publications. In addition, the Information Exchange can provide convenient access to a world-class selection of professional books and resources including Web-based training and certification programs -- the same selection available from Fatbrain.com's popular online store.

Special features of the Information Exchange solution provide powerful management tools for customized reporting on access trends, a variety of "pull" marketing programs designed to help corporations track content delivery and audience reach, quick implementation of new services, dynamic site updates, and extra layers of security for maintaining the privacy of confidential internal documents.

The Information Exchange solution integrates seamlessly with existing purchasing systems to allow cost control of document distribution. Corporations may use the complete product suite or select individual applications from the Information Exchange that best suit their needs.

Enterprise eMatter

Fortune1000 companies spend tens of millions of dollars annually printing information for internal consumption. Distributing this information electronically could eliminate much of this printing expense. Until now, the security risks of unauthorized dissemination and violations of copyrights associated with electronic distribution and an unfriendly user interface have prevented this. eMatter, Fatbrain.com's revolutionary new format for digital content is secure, allowing corporations to bring this content to digital distribution, saving organizations money while allowing faster distribution of information. This security, coupled with Fatbrain's easy-to use features, provides an elegant migration path from paper to digital, helping corporations to realize the vision of the paperless office. eMatter documents are delivered in Windows versions of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and feature a persistent security wrapper that ensures that content is protected even if it is redistributed.

Print-on-Demand

Fatbrain.com's print-on-demand solution allows corporations to outsource all printed document publishing operations, thereby eliminating the costs associated with setting up and maintaining an internal publishing and distribution operation. The program oversees production, warehousing and delivery of up-to-the-minute printed documentation for employees, customers and partners.

For more information about Fatbrain.com's Information Exchange, visit www1.fatbrain.com/infoexchange/home.asp.

About Fatbrain.com

Fatbrain.com is the leader in managing, marketing and distributing information for businesses. Today, the company's business-to-business solutions reach more than 1.75 million employee desktops at more than 200 Fortune1000 corporations worldwide. Fatbrain provides businesses with a comprehensive Web-based solution for information exchange by combining its leading professional bookstore with unique print-on-demand capabilities and enterprise eMatter, a customized implementation of its secure digital publishing solution, for the printed and digital delivery of valuable, mission critical corporate information. Fatbrain.com enables paper and digital documents to co-exist in an organized and highly-accessible fashion. Last year, the company was named the second fastest-growing public company in Silicon Valley. Visit Fatbrain.com on the Web at http://www.fatbrain.com.

Fatbrain.com is a trademark of Fatbrain.com, Inc. All company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.