Voss Net Plc, the UK internet service provider, is repositioning itself to tackle the small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) e-commerce market. After only five weeks in the job, CEO Jeremy Gilbert intends to shift the company towards making money from software rather than taking cuts from dial-up fees. The change is prompted by the Langley, Berkshire-based firm’s first half results last month when losses outstripped revenue (CI No 3,752), and also by the failure of the company’s free ISP business for schools and charities, which won only 2000 customers.
Voss Net’s Advantage software gives companies an online catalog of big enough to accommodate 50 products, with shopping basket facilities and connection to Cambridge-based transaction processing and credit checking firm NetBanx Ltd. Voss Net, whose software is priced at 995 pounds ($1,600) with hosting from its datacenters at Langley at 50 pounds ($80) a month, hopes to undercut German e-commerce firm Intershop Communications AG. Intershop does offer integration with back-end financials and stock inventories for its monthly 125 pound price, but Voss Net says it will add these features in six months’ time. The Langley firm will try to sign 20 resellers before Christmas for UK distribution.
