Two leaders in the field of newsgroup services
are joining forces. HighWind Inc.
of Boston, MA and ISPNews Inc. of
Detroit, MI announced their merger at the ISPCON show.
“Our goal is to be known as the world’s first and foremost full-service
usenet technology provider,” said Mike Betts, president and CEO of the
new company, which will be known as ISPNews-HighWind.
ISPNews has been one of a small group of companies that provide
newsgroup services, saving ISPs from the expense of hosting the several
hundred megabytes of data required to provide a newsgroup feed. The
company maintains a week’s worth of postings in more than 40,000
newsgroups.
The field is becoming more competitive; ISPNews’ leading competitor,
SuperNews Inc. received a $4
million investment from Benchmark Capital to fund expansion. SuperNews
had a significant presence on the show floor and has launched a new
marketing campaign aimed at signing more ISPs for its services.
HighWind develops the Typhoon news server software used by ISPs and
corporations. SuperNews developed its own server software.
Chris Carlston of ISPNews said the merger was precipitated by the
company’s need to accelerate its development of usenet server software.
Talks with HighWind about the need for collaborative software
development led to the merger.
Carlston said the activity in newsgroups is currently growing at a
rate of about 10 percent a month. ISPNews currently serves more than 300
ISPs with a newsgroup feed. The two companies have combined annual
revenue of over $3 million.
Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.