Atlanta, Georgia-based interactive media company iXL Inc and Los Angeles, California-based web content developer Boxtop Interactive Inc announced are combining their strengths in a merger aimed at ramping up the delivery of interactive content and business systems to the entertainment and media industries. The move follows an aggressive merger effort by iXL which has been looking to expand its multimedia and production facility. According to Bert Ellis iXL’s chairman and chief executive officer, the joint company will now have operation centers in Atlanta, New York, Charlotte, Memphis and Los Angeles, and will enable the company to grow its business in the entertainment industry and on the West Coast. iXL deals principally in employing internet and intranet technologies for business to business communications but Ellis says the company still reaps 15% of its revenues from its Pitchman presentation software, laptop based software for television and media companies who wish to present full motion video pilots. Boxtop will become a wholly owned subsidiary of iXL. Founded in 1995, Boxtop Interactive develops, creates and maintains sites on the internet for entertainment based companies including Fox Broadcasting Company, A&M Records, Castle Rock Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox and constructs sites on behalf of Microsoft, AT&T and the Interactive Channel. It is known for its jazzy designs and employs some of the computer industry’s most respected designers, programmers and systems analysts including Tim Dorcey, the inventor of CU-SeeMe videoconferencing software.
