Businesses looking to go online with minimal costs can now do so for free with launch of what has been touted as a “one-stop” and “all-in-one” business-to-business web platform.
The website (www,corpmart.com.my) was launched recently by Corpmart Sdn Bhd, which said it provides customers with web-hosting services, plus its as yet unnamed office management and communication tool to help them build their own intranet applications.
The website and tool are currently available in English and Chinese. A Bahasa Melayu version will be available within several months, the company claimed.
Corpmart is a subsidiary of Netrove Asia Sdn Bhd, which in turn is a partner of Hong Kong-based Corpmart.com Ltd.
The Hong Kong company had earlier this year launched a Hong Kong site, calling it the “world’s first free corporate portal.”
Corpmart said it has spent more than RM1 million in hardware and software for the portal.
It has signed an agreement recently with Oracle Systems Malaysia Sdn Bhd, under which the latter will provide its Oracle 8i database system and Sun Micorsystems Inc servers to help build up the portal.
Currently, Corpmart provides free services like domain name hosting and mapping, corporate website hosting, unlimited web-based e-mail accounts, corporate intranet and personal virtual desktops. For website hosting, each corporation is given 10MB of storage capacity.
There will be additional features for www.corpmart.com.my in the coming months, such as additional storage capacity and WAP services, the company claimed.
It said it is speaking with several local partners to boost its services offerings. Maxis Communications Sdn Bhd has confirmed it will provide some its services on the portal, according to Corpmart CEO Kevin Loh.
The company will make its revenues from these value-added services, although it declined to elaborate on the fees it would charge for them.
Loh said he is confident of obtaining 20,000 small and medium industry (SMI) users within the next six months, and expects the website to begin turning a profit within one year.
Currently, the bulk of its revenue comes from advertising.
The company which has applied for Multimedia Super Corridor status, also said that from its South Asian regional headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, it intends to expand to other countries like Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. – CHEE YIH YANG