"This latest development in our alliance with Lotus reaffirms our commitment to provide intranet building solutions that help facilitate relationships among employees, business partners, suppliers, and channels," said Morris Taradalsky, NetObjects executive vice president of server products and professional services.  "The Connector for Business Documents allows us to open up NetObjects Authoring Server Suite more than ever before by empowering business users and Web contributors from all over the company to participate in building and maintaining the corporate intranet."

"In working with NetObjects we've simplified the process of collaboratively building a corporate intranet," said Jim Burnham, general manager, Lotus Internet Applications Division. "FastSite facilitates the conversion of a wide range of file formats to HTML and uploads them to the Connector, allowing disparate users from around the company to collaborate and contribute to the intranet, whether they reside in finance, human resources, manufacturing or other departments."

Web masters, who are constantly challenged with juggling content from countless contributors, will realize the significant benefits of Lotus FastSite and NetObjects Connector for Business Documents to make intranet development a simple process. By enabling non-technical contributors with Lotus FastSite's conversion capabilities to create and maintain documents within preferred productivity tools -- such as Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Office and Corel WordPerfect -- users can seamlessly convert common business documents from more than 25 file formats to HTML for posting to their corporate and departmental intranets. With the combined offering, document authors, after converting documents to HTML in Lotus FastSite, simply upload their pages and the associated content files through the Connector for Business Documents into the NetObjects Authoring Server.

The NetObjects Authoring Server Suite allows a user or team of users to work on the documents in a controlled, collaborative site-building environment. These pages are incorporated into the site using NetObjects TeamFusion Client, which develops the site structure and pages, then published by NetObjects Authoring Server. Once the content files are incorporated, document authors maintain them in the original application, then simply repeat the HTML conversion and uploading processes to update the authoring server pages. The revised content is displayed the next time the site is published.

Pricing and Availability

About NetObjects

NetObjects, Inc. (NASDAQ:NETO), majority owned by IBM (NYSE:IBM), is a leading provider of e-Business software and services that enable small businesses as well as large-scale enterprises to build, deploy and maintain Web sites on the Internet and corporate intranets.  The NetObjects product family includes NetObjects Fusion™ and NetObjects Authoring Server Suite. In addition, NetObjects offers its customers on-line solutions, including content, products and services to help them register, host, build, maintain and promote their Web sites.

NetObjects has been ranked by Softletter 100, NewMedia 500 and as one of Fortune’s 25 Very Cool Companies. Its products have won over 50 awards including InfoWorld's Analyst Choice award, CNET's Internet Excellence award, PC Magazine's Editors Choice award and InternetWorld’s Industry Award. More information about NetObjects and its products can be found at www.netobjects.com.

About Lotus

Lotus Development Corporation, founded in 1982, is a subsidiary of IBM Corporation.  Lotus sets the standard for truly innovative software products and services that reflect the company's unique understanding of the new ways in which individuals and businesses must work together to achieve success.  Lotus is redefining the concept of conducting  business through practical knowledge management, e-business and other ground-breaking ways of connecting the world's ideas, thinkers, buyers, sellers and communities via the Internet. Lotus markets its products in more than 80 countries worldwide through direct and extensive Business Partner channels.  The company also provides numerous professional consulting, support and education services through the Lotus Professional Services organization.

EDITOR'S NOTE: All news releases and related information are available on the Internet, via the Lotus Development Corp. Home Page at http://www.Lotus.com. The Lotus Home Page is an easy way to find information about Lotus and its business partners’ products and services.

A copy of this release and other company information is also available via fax by dialing 1-800-57-LOTUS within the U.S. and Canada or 201-946-2336 outside the U.S. and Canada.

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