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StarCite and OnVantage Merge, Creating the Largest Global On-Demand Meetings Management Company; New Company Greatly Increases Capacity to Apply On-Demand Software Approach to Largely Unmanaged $300 Billion Global Meetings Market.


PHILADELPHIA & SANTA CLARA Santa Clara, city, Cuba
Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba.
, Calif. -- StarCite, Inc. and OnVantage, Inc. today announced a merger that creates the largest on-demand meetings management company in the $300 billion global marketplace for corporate meetings and events and positions the company for accelerated future growth.

"On-demand global meetings management is the future of the meetings industry," said Michael Boult, President and Chief Executive Officer of StarCite. "With only about three percent of meetings spending currently under management, this business is a virtually untouched frontier of corporate spending. The new StarCite has the opportunity to bring buyers and suppliers together electronically on an unprecedented scale, saving millions for corporations and delivering lucrative meetings business directly to hotels. We have doubled the resources we can devote to continuously improving our solutions, expanding our global footprint and broadening our ability to promote best practices in meetings management."

The new company, which will operate under the StarCite name, plans to provide substantial documented cost-savings for corporations and over $5 billion in revenue opportunities for the new company's supplier community. The new StarCite expects to:

--Work with leading global corporations across industries, including AIG AIG addressee indicator group (US DoD)
AIG American International Group, Inc
AiG Answers in Genesis (religious group in defense of Scripture)
AIG Artificial Intelligence Group
AIG Australian Industry Group
, Amgen, Caterpillar caterpillar (kăt`əpĭl'ər, kăt`ər–), common name for the larva of a moth or butterfly. Caterpillars have distinct heads and are segmented and wormlike. , Cisco, Motorola, Nestle, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Shell.

--Deliver over $5 billion in revenue opportunities to its supplier database, up 50 percent from 2005.

--Operate a greatly expanded global meetings marketplace that links buyers with 93,000 hotel properties and meetings suppliers in every key market around the world.

--Work with all major hotel chains including Accor, Fairmont, Hilton, Hyatt, InterContinental in·ter·con·ti·nen·tal  
adj.
1. Extending or taking place between or among continents: intercontinental exploration; intercontinental cooperation.

2.
, Marriott, Omni, Starwood, and Wyndham.

--Process over 2.5 million attendee registrations per year, an increase of 50 percent over 2005.

"Implementing a strategic meetings management program is critical to a corporation that wants to maximize the value of the dollars it spends on enterprise-wide meetings, as well as increase its visibility into that spend in an efficient and scalable way," said Michele Snock, Global Manager, Meeting Services, Cisco Systems “Cisco” redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation).
Cisco System,Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, HKSE: 4333 ) is an American multinational corporation with 54,000 employees and annual revenue of US $28.48 billion as of 2006.
, Inc. "With its global reach via the Internet, on-demand solutions, and unmatched supplier database, the new StarCite enables a company to do just that."

"The time is right for this merger," said John Chang, Chief Executive Officer of OnVantage. "OnVantage and StarCite have long shared a vision of reshaping the meetings business through on-demand meetings management solutions. Together, we will clarify the choice for buyers when selecting a meetings management partner and significantly accelerate adoption of this technology around the world."

The new StarCite will continue to offer best-in-class technology to power lead management and RFP (Request For Proposal) A document that invites a vendor to submit a bid for hardware, software and/or services. It may provide a general or very detailed specification of the system.

1. (business) RFP - Request for Proposal.
2.
 traffic for "private label" hotel websites - historically an area of strength for both OnVantage and StarCite. The combined company's technology will power private label meetings sites for hotel brands such as Adams Mark, Aramark, Carlson, Destination Hotels, Fairmont, Hilton, Hyatt, LXR LXR Linux Cross Reference
LXR Luxor, Egypt - Luxor (Airport Code) 
, Morgans, Omni, Starwood, and Wyndham.

"StarCite will directly deliver over $5 billion in meeting revenue opportunities to hotels that would be almost impossible to identify, aggregate and capture otherwise," said Fred Shea, Vice President of Sales for Global Hyatt Global Hyatt Corporation is a Chicago, Illinois, based holding company for several hotel brands and related businesses. Subsidiaries
  • Hyatt Corporation (North America and Caribbean hotels)
. "By significantly increasing the number of potential opportunities flowing through their combined online marketplace solutions, we believe the new StarCite will become an even more valuable partner in the future."

Another area of continued growth for the new StarCite is its strong partner relationships with many of the world's leading travel agencies and meetings management companies. These world-class partners include American Express American Express (NYSE: AXP), sometimes known as "AmEx" or "Amex", is a diversified global financial services company, headquartered in New York City. The company is best known for its credit card, charge card and traveler's cheque businesses.  Business Travel, BCD (Binary Coded Decimal) The storage of numbers in which each decimal digit is converted into binary and is stored in a single character or byte. For example, a 12-digit number would take 12 bytes. See binary numbers.  Meetings and Incentives, Conference Direct, Conferon Global Services, HelmsBriscoe, Maritz Travel Company, and Navigant Performance Group.

The new StarCite is backed by leading investors that include Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ NASDAQ
 in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations

U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on
: ICGE), Norwest Venture Partners (NVP NVP Network Voice Protocol
NVP Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy
NVP Name-Value Pair
NVP National Vice President
NVP Nominal Velocity of Propagation
NVP N-Version Programming (multiple functionally equivalent program versions) 
), Texas Pacific Group, and TL Ventures. The new company will be headquartered in Philadelphia and will retain offices in Santa Clara, CA. Michael Boult will serve as President and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board.  of the new StarCite. John Chang will serve as Chairman and drive integration efforts, and John Pino, StarCite's founder, will serve as President, StarCite International, with a focus on international growth and partner strategies. The company will have offices around the world, including the U.S., London, Dusseldorf, Hong Kong Hong Kong (hŏng kŏng), Mandarin Xianggang, special administrative region of China, formerly a British crown colony (2005 est. pop. 6,899,000), land area 422 sq mi (1,092 sq km), adjacent to Guangdong prov. , and Shanghai.

The company expects to move forward rapidly with business integration, bringing together best-of-breed technology and business practices from both organizations. Customers of both companies will proceed under the current terms of their contracts, using their respective OnVantage or StarCite technology and service solutions, through December 2007.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2006. Terms of the merger were not disclosed.

About StarCite, Inc.

StarCite, Inc. is a provider of On Demand Global Meeting Solutions(TM). StarCite optimizes global investments in corporate meetings and events delivering visibility, savings and control. StarCite provides process efficiency, enabling technology and proven adoption management support to drive significant cost reduction to buyers and enhanced revenues to suppliers. StarCite is based in Philadelphia. Investors in StarCite include Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ: ICGE); Maritz Travel Company; Seaport Capital Seaport Capital is a New York City-based private equity fund that invests in media, communications & business and information services companies. Most of the properties they own are concentrated in medium and small markets, ranging from television stations to cable operators, as ; and TL Ventures. For more information about StarCite, or its technologies and services, please visit www.starcite.com.

About OnVantage, Inc.

OnVantage(TM), Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., is a technology provider for the $300 billion global market for the professional meetings and events industry. OnVantage offers flexible solutions to help corporations save time and money by automating the planning and procurement The fancy word for "purchasing." The procurement department within an organization manages all the major purchases.  of large and small meetings with unprecedented cost control and spend visibility. OnVantage also makes it easy for meeting suppliers to grow their groups and meetings business by offering increased visibility with Fortune 1000 meeting planners as well as helping them efficiently manage and track the RFP process. A global corporation, OnVantage has sales and customer service operations in the U.S., UK, Germany and Hong Kong.

OnVantage and OnVantage Marketplace for Meetings are trademarks of OnVantage, Inc. All other names, brands, or products may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Business Wire
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2006, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Publication:Business Wire
Article Type:Company overview
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Aug 9, 2006
Words:966
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