STAMPS.COM SELECTED BY HP AS THE EASIEST SOLUTION FOR ITS CUSTOMERS TO PRINT POSTAGE ONLINE
Number One Internet Postage(TM) Company Forms Alliance With The Leader In Home and Office Printing
SANTA MONICA, Calif. – January 18, 2000 – Stamps.com™ (NASDAQ: STMP) today announced a distribution and marketing alliance with Hewlett-Packard Company to provide the cost-effectiveness and time savings of Internet Postage(TM) to new HP customers and the more than 100 million existing HP printer owners. As part of this relationship, Stamps.com’s Internet Postage software will be bundled with select HP OfficeJet products, as well as personal and workgroup HP LaserJet printer installation CDs; and will also be accessible through a co-branded Web page (www.hpaffiliates.com). Stamps.com Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Payne announced the relationship today at the Thomas Weisel Partners Business-To-Business Conference in Boston.
“This relationship gives Stamps.com a giant leap ahead of its competitors by giving HP customers the power to print postage online using only a PC, printer and an Internet connection,” said Loren Smith, Chief Operating Officer and President of Stamps.com. “Our software-only Internet Postage service gives us a competitive advantage because we are the only solution in the market that can be bundled onto installation CDs. Through this new bundling agreement with HP, Stamps.com will provide HP customers with a more cost-effective and efficient way to manage their mail.”
Stamps.com is the only Internet Postage service that requires no hardware or metering device and no start-up fees or long-term contracts. Stamps.com is also the only Internet Postage provider to offer customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week by phone, on e-mail or through live messaging.
“HP believes the future of printing lies in applications and services that turn a printer into something more,” said Carolyn Ticknor, President of HP Imaging and Printing Systems and a Stamps.com Director. “By supporting Stamps.com, we provide our customers with a totally new way of meeting the business need for postage-and help them gain more utility from their printers through a powerful and simple printing e-service.”
Stamps.com’s Internet Postage service brings HP’s OfficeJet, personal and workgroup LaserJet printer customers the convenience of printing postage directly from their printers. Select OfficeJet and LaserJet owners will find Stamps.com software conveniently accessible on their installation CD and will also receive free postage and a free month of service when they sign-up and install or download the software. In the near future, HP customers will also have access to Stamps.com’s full-service shipping service to manage all their mail and parcel shipments.
Benefits for Customers:
HP will bundle Stamps.com’s Internet Postage software on the printer installation CDs of new HP OfficeJet products, as well as personal and workgroup HP LaserJet printers.
Stamps.com’s Internet Postage service will be easily accessible to customers via a HP and Stamps.com co-branded Web site. Customers can connect to this co-branded site via the HP Web site (www.hpaffiliates.com).
About Stamps.com
Founded in 1996, Santa Monica-based Stamps.com is the only commercially approved true Internet Postage service. The company’s innovative technology eliminates the need for specialized hardware by giving customers the flexibility to print postage over the Internet – securely, accurately and fast. Through partnerships with major companies like America Online, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Office Depot, Quicken.com and 3M, Stamps.com has tremendous reach into the small office/home office and consumer markets. More information about the company can be found at sdcmainprod.wpengine.com.
###
“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Important factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements, are detailed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made from time to time by Stamps.com, including its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 1999 and its registration statement on Form S-4, as amended, that was filed with the SEC on January 7, 2000. Stamps.com undertake no obligation to release publicly any revisions to any forward looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
Internet Postage, Stamps.com and the Stamps.com logo are trademarks of Stamps.com Inc. All other brands and names are property of their respective owners.