The four companies are Omni Healthcare, Northern California-based HMO, www.omnihealthcare.com; Maison Louisanne Creole Products, San Francisco-based manufacturer of gourmet condiments, www.shutmymouth.com; Krause Publications, Wisconsin-based publisher of leisure-time periodicals and books, www.krause.com; and Totally Coffee, Southern California-based gourmet coffee company, www.totallycoffee.com. All four used NetObjects Fusion award-winning Web site authoring software to build complex Web sites that communicate company information and sell products.

"NetObjects Fusion enables small businesses to unleash the infinite potential of the World Wide Web to directly impact their profitability," said Samir Arora, CEO of NetObjects. "Similar to the positive impact of desktop publishing on small business, we expect that thousands of Webtop publishers will follow the example of these early adopters to easily build rich Web sites."

According to a 1995 BIS Strategic Decisions study on small business and home office, small businesses represent 90 percent of the firms in the U.S. today. And, according to market researcher Computer Intelligence, only 12% of small businesses in the United States currently use the Internet.

"A small business that is not connected to the Internet today is like a small business not being connected to the telephone system fifty years ago," said Jay Conrad Levinson, author, "Guerrilla Marketing. "The Internet gives small business an unfair advantage these days by allowing that business owner to compete on equal terms with huge businesses."

The four customers join over 100,000 users who have downloaded NetObjects Fusion since September 1996 with over 1000 Web sites published to date. They attest to the product's ease-of-use in building a Web site and the remarkable resulting increase in both customer inquiries and sales figures.

"Since our site went live, we have had about a 2000% increase in customer inquiries," said Lawrence Ames, president of Maison Louisanne Creole Products. "More importantly, retail outlets reported that shoppers went into their stores specifically looking for our products guided there by our Web site."

In addition to increasing mindshare and marketshare, having a presence on the Web also helps small businesses establish an edge over the competition, save precious marketing dollars and offer improved customer service.

"Since most small HMO's are not on the World Wide Web, having a Web site gives us a considerable advantage over our competitors," said Keith Harvey, Webmaster of Omni Healthcare. "Before we had a Web site we tried mailing newsletters or brochures, but these methods are very expensive for a small company. Now the combination of e-mail and our Web site has made marketing effective and affordable."

Sites built with NetObjects Fusion have attracted considerable media attention and won awards. For instance, the Maison Louisanne Creole Products site was featured on NBC On-line and Netscape Communications' What's New list, and awarded leading designer David Siegel's High Five award for Web design.

"We believe that having a Web site adds credibility to an organization, especially a small one. NetObjects Fusion allowed us to create a customer-centric Web site that is well designed, easy to navigate and fun to visit." said Keith Barkenhagen, Webmaster of Totally Coffee.

NetObjects Fusion is the industry's only visual, site-oriented Web site building software that gives users a quantum leap of productivity over manual, programmatic ways of building Web sites today. The product ships with several AutoSites for Internet and intranet publishing which provide users a jumpstart to site building. AutoSites are fully-designed site structures with placeholder content that are drawn from the Web design expertise of Clement Mok, one of NetObjects' founders and leading interactive media designer.

NetObjects Fusion 1.0, NetObjects' flagship Web site building software application, is available for Windows and Macintosh operating systems. NetObjects Fusion 1.0 has won several industry awards including Slaughterhouse's Killer App, one of C/NET's Top Five Internet Products of the Year, Morph's Outpost Daily Spectrum's Best Web Authoring Tool, PC Magazine's Editors Choice and Publish Magazine's Impact.

About NetObjects
NetObjects, Inc. is a privately-held company that is funded by Perseus LLC, AT&T Ventures, Norwest Venture Capital, Venrock Associates and private investors. NetObjects develops Web site building products that are based on the first visual, site-oriented approach to building Web sites, unlike first generation, text-based, page-oriented tools. NetObjects FusionTM is the first smart Web site building application that integrates automated site building, professional quality design and data publishing, thereby lowering the cost, time and tedium of building high-quality Web sites. NetObjects Fusion is actively promoted by NetObjects' partners Apple Computer, AT&T, IBM, Javasoft, Microsoft, Netscape, and UUNET Technologies.

Information about NetObjects and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.netobjects.com or by calling 1-888-449-6400.

For press inquiries, contact:
Kamini Ramani
Director of Corporate Communications
(415) 482-3238