AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands; March 17, 1997 -- EUnet International, the leading European provider of one-stop value-added Internet services, today announced the signing of a strategic alliance with INTERSHOP Communications(formerly NetConsult Communications), the leading provider of comprehensive turnkey solutions for on-line shopping. The alliance is intended to complement the marketing strategies of both organisations and to offer customers wanting to develop electronic commerce sites with a proven team of experts.

INTERSHOP Communications's flagship product, INTERSHOP Online, provides a ready-made professional-looking store "shell" for businesses that want to sell on the Web. It provides merchants with a complete customizable storefront, which is ready to be stocked with products, along with an integrated administrative back office to manage operations.

INTERSHOP Online was the first virtual mall software to allow set-up and administration of a number of Internet stores using a single interface, and in a comprehensive eCommerce software comparison was recently rated by Software Digest's National Software Testing Lab as "Internet Storefront Winner". The product has been widely accepted by small to medium enterprises (SMEs) as well as a number of Fortune 500 companies.

"INTERSHOP Communications is one of the few on-line shopping solutions available today that works right out of the box. Based on a model of the business process of a typical mail order operation, INTERSHOP allows us to offer a powerful on-line shopping solution to on-line merchants who wish to operate virtual stores on the Internet, and is an ideal element in our own one-stop offering for companies wishing to do business on the Net," said Marc Oswald, EUnet International's Sales and Marketing Director.

According to CEO Stephen Scambach, who founded INTERSHOP Communications in Germany in 1992, "EUnet International is the largest provider of Internet services in Europe today. Like us, their roots are in Europe but their scope is global. With EUnet International we expect both to extend our market reach and to increase our visibility. Co-operation will happen on both a marketing and a technical level, so that we can provide our customers all across Europe with reliable, high-quality connections ."

Under the terms of this alliance, both companies agree not only to work together on strategic large accounts and to promote the partnership in coordinated marketing activities, but EUnet International and INTERSHOP Communications also agree to implement alternative payment methods according to market demand. EUnet will integrate INTERSHOP into its 15 highly successful Netvvik web-hotel locations in Norway and Sweden, as well as in other countries, to provide a better shopping experience, while at the same time, INTERSHOP Communications has designated EUnet International as its recommended ISP.

Established in 1982, and the first European provider of services for business use, EUnet was instrumental in creating Europe's Internet infrastructure. Today, EUnet International provides one-stop shopping for corporate Internet access in Europe with a network of 42 countries and over 300 PoPs (Points of Presence). Besides high speed access to the United States, Japan and the rest of the world, EUnet offers the business community a number of turnkey solutions ranging from full-service centrally managed connectivity and intranets to mobile access and web page development.