asknet.com / Press Releases

asknet Helps US Businesses Expand Global Reach with Enhanced eCommerce Platform

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:55:00 +0200

San Francisco, Calif. - July 20, 2010 - asknet, a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions that increase sales and expand markets for software and digital media companies, announced today the availability of its enhanced global online sales platform and one of the industry’s most extensive eCommerce performance benchmark ranking – asknet Digital Index (ADI) – that tracks crucial KPIs like sales per visitor and conversion rates. As a company with European roots, asknet possesses the expertise to ease market entrance for US companies looking to expand their international reach while maintaining localized services for Europe, Asia and emerging markets, including regions with right-to-left written languages. asknet’s enhanced global eCommerce platform enables businesses to access markets and grow online sales in emerging countries including Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), which by some accounts could be the largest economies in the world within the next few years. The BRIC countries make up almost half of the world’s current population, making them particularly attractive high-growth markets for US businesses. “To compete, businesses must be able to open new sales channels in the eCommerce market. asknet makes that possible by removing barriers to entry, such as fluency in the customers’ language, currency, payment methods and compliance,” said Mark Bégin, president of asknet America. “asknet offers localized e-shops throughout the world enabling software and digital media companies to increase international market share without making huge investments in building new infrastructure, gaining expertise for each new geography and developing location-specific features for an e-shop.” Currently offering 31 shop languages, 38 billing currencies, 33 payment options and 12 customer service languages, asknet continues to travel across the global eCommerce frontier. To help customers extend their global reach, asknet most recently added a fully localized cart for Russia and China. asknet now features localized customer service, translation, and billing currency in Russian rubles and WebMoney, the most common secure payment system in Russia, as well as Alipay, the number one payment method in China. Russian and Chinese billing is displayed in the e-shop so there is no exchange rate charge. In addition, registration pages are localized to conform to local standards and native speakers offering customer service are available in all time zones. The asknet Digital Index, ADI, measures the online software business and has the most comprehensive eCommerce benchmark ranking tools to assess and compare individual performance of eCommerce market trends within asknet’s client porftolio. ADI calculates sales, conversion rate, sales per visitor and Average Order Value (AOV). The data uncovers peaks and declines in real-time as well as seasonal variations, effects from promotions and activities, most relevant indicators, daily average sales and average conversion rates for digital goods. asknet’s extensive localized e-shop portfolio provides international consumers with an easy, satisfying online shopping experience, leading to higher conversions, sales and retention rates, and lower abandonment issues. Within a 72 hour timeframe, the eCommerce platform can scale to manage one domestic e-shop to over 170 secure localized e-shops in all major markets. Billing is displayed in the e-shop so there are never exchange rate charges. For US software and digital media companies, the secure and scalable global platform offered by asknet transcends international obstacles and allows for successful marketing and selling of digital products worldwide. The proprietary Vendor Interaction Process (VIP) quickly and easily provides solutions tailored to meet each user’s needs and the extensive sales and eMarketing capabilities enable flawless execution across the full range of eCommerce services, from order management and local payment options to worldwide customer service.
About asknet
asknet is a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions that increase sales and expand markets for software and digital media companies. asknet solutions enable publishers to expand their international reach while maintaining localized services to customers in the US, Europe, Asia and new emerging markets. The asknet Digital Index (ADI), Vendor Interaction Process (VIP), and Shop Cockpit provide quick and easy solutions tailored to meet each customer’s needs and enable flawless execution across the full range of eCommerce services, from order management and local payment options to multi-lingual customer service. Founded in 1995, asknet today offers localized e-shops in over 170 countries. The company is based in Germany and has headquarters in San Francisco and Tokyo.
Media Contact:
Carolyn Adams
Borders+Gratehouse
phone: (415) 963-4174 ext. 4
eMail: carolyn@bordersgratehouse.com Press Contact:
asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com

asknet AG
Katja Speck
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6369
eMail: katja.speck@asknet.com

asknet President Presents Proven Methods to Increase Revenue Using Global eCommerce

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 09:16:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, July 9, 2010 – asknet, a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions that increase sales and expand markets for software and digital media companies, announced today that President Mark Bégin will speak at the Software Industry Conference 2010 in Dallas, Texas on Saturday, July 17. His presentation, “The Future of eCommerce - How to Sell Successfully Online”, will include tips on growing online business in existing markets, lowering IT costs, and automating subscription business. In addition, he will discuss key steps for expanding business into emerging markets worldwide. Bégin launched asknet‘s Vendor Interaction Process (VIP), which quickly and easily provides solutions tailored to meet each user’s needs and enables flawless execution across the full range of eCommerce services, from order management and local payment options to worldwide customer service.

Event	“The Future of eCommerce - How to Sell Successfully Online” Software Industry Conference 2010
Speaker	Mark Bégin, President, asknet, Inc.
Date/Time:	July 17, 2010 at 10:15 a.m.
Location:	Hyatt Regency Hotel DFW International Parkway Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, TX 75261

Press Contacts
asknet AG
Kirsten Neininger
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6399
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com
www.asknet.com

About asknet
asknet is a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions that increase sales and expand markets for software and digital media companies. asknet solutions enable publishers to expand their international reach while maintaining localized services to customers in the US, Europe, Asia and new emerging markets. The asknet Digital Index (ADI), Vendor Interaction Process (VIP), and asknet Shop Cockpit (ASC) provide quick and easy solutions tailored to meet each customer’s needs and enable flawless execution across the full range of eCommerce services, from order management and local payment options to multi-lingual customer service. Founded in 1995, asknet today offers localized eShops in over 170 countries. The company is based in Germany and has headquarters in San Francisco and Tokyo.

asknet and Baynote Extend Recommendation and Search Optimization Technology to Global Electronic Software Industry

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, June 30, 2010 – asknet AG, a leading provider of outsourcing solutions for the global electronic software distribution (ESD) industry, today announced a partnership with Baynote, an innovator in adaptive Web solutions. Through the agreement, asknet will market and distribute Baynote’s products to its network of ESD clients.

Currently, visitors to a website will click three times to find what they want before returning to Google to repeat their search. Complicated accessibility leads to a decrease in conversion rates and therefore in sales, while at the same time causing frustration for potential buyers and users. With Baynote's Collective Intelligence Platform™, which is delivered as a software service, asknet now offers its clients a solution to deliver relevant online experiences that adapt to their customers’ changing interests in real-time. As a result, more visitors are converted into purchasers and the average order value (AOV) is increased. The aim is to make the website as personal and relevant as possible for the visitor.

Software vendors use Baynote’s recommendation and search optimization technology to automatically display the best products and content online based on an individual’s unique intent. For example, Baynote can instantly guide a website visitor to the answers to technical questions in FAQs by observing what other like minded individuals also found useful.

“A major U.S. software vendor was able to improve the hit rate on its FAQ website by 500 percent using our Collective Intelligence Platform. As a result, calls to customer service have decreased by a factor of four, which on the one hand represents a tremendous cost savings and on the other an increase in customer satisfaction," confirms Dr. Rolf Dörr, Director of Business Development for Central Europe at Baynote.

“For our customers who sell digital products online, we see great potential in Baynote's methodology based on collective intelligence. It allows vendors to boost customer satisfaction and therefore conversion rates, which leads directly to higher online sales. At the same time we make it possible to establish a basis for cross-selling recommendations for cooperating vendors of complex software solutions," notes Katja Speck, asknet’s Vice President of Global Marketing.

About asknet
asknet offers its clients customized outsourcing solutions for global software sales via the Internet. Founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, formerly the University of Karlsruhe), the company has become the number two independent global provider for electronic software distribution. In addition to its fully integrated shop solutions for software publishers, the company develops and maintains portals for software distribution such as softwarehouse.de, one of Europe's largest. In 2009, asknet posted sales of approximately 68.9 million euros. In 2009 the Karlsruhe company was named in the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu “Technology Fast 50” ranking of the fastest-growing technology firms in Germany. asknet’s clients include numerous providers of specialty software such as CollabNet, DivX, F-Secure, Nero, Panda Security, Steganos, and NetObjects. The company also supplies software products to around eighty percent of German universities. Further information is available from www.asknet.com.

About Baynote
Launched in 2006, Baynote's Collective Intelligence Platform™ delivers on-demand recommendation technology and social search. Baynote's SaaS solutions are easy to implement on top of existing infrastructure to increase online revenue, leads, and impressions. Baynote delivers billions of recommendations each month to hundreds of leading enterprise, media and e-commerce companies, including Expedia, Intuit, Motorola, NASA, Symantec, and Urban Outfitters. For more information, please visit www.baynote.com.

Press Contacts
Bernard Haug
asknet, Inc.
phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com

Kirsten Neininger
asknet AG
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6399
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet publishes results for first quarter of 2010

Fri, 14 May 2010 08:00:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, May 14, 2010 – asknet AG, an international provider of eCommerce solutions which recently was ranked as one of Germany’s fastest-growing technology companies in Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 50” report, has published its financial figures for the first quarter of 2010. In the first three months of 2010, the asknet Group posted sales of 16.2 million euros. asknet’s gross profits grew steadily by six percent to 2.49 million euros (first quarter of 2009: 2.36 million euros). The Group’s operating results saw a year-on-year improvement of 35 percent.
“The company's financial figures for the first quarter of 2010 once again show growth and an improvement in results," says asknet CFO Michael Konrad. “asknet AG will look to stabilize this positive trend by intensifying our push to internationalize and expand into new geographical markets. Our objective is to offer our customers solutions and services that open up new growth potential in eCommerce for them. Our new partnerships with Alipay, a Chinese financial services institute, and Klarna AB of Sweden will help further this aim. They allow us to offer software vendors local payment options that number among the most used online payment methods in the respective markets.” As of today, asknet AG's Quarterly Report 1/2010 is available on the company’s website.

About asknet
asknet offers its clients customized outsourcing solutions for global software sales via the Internet. Founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, formerly the University of Karlsruhe), the company has become the number two independent global provider for electronic software distribution. In addition to its fully integrated shop solutions for software publishers, the company develops and maintains portals for software distribution such as softwarehouse.de, one of Europe's largest platform for downloads of standard software. In 2009, asknet posted sales of approximately 68.9 million euros. In 2009 the Karlsruhe company was named in the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu “Technology Fast 50” ranking of the fastest-growing technology firms in Germany. asknet’s clients include numerous providers of specialty software such as CollabNet, DivX, F-Secure, Nero, Panda Security, Steganos, and NetObjects. The company also supplies software products to around eighty percent of German universities.

Press Contacts
asknet AG
Kirsten Neininger
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6399
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com

www.asknet.com

asknet eCommerce and eMarketing experts attend affiliate4u expo in Munich

Fri, 07 May 2010 10:36:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, May 7, 2010 – asknet AG announces it will attend the a4u expo Affiliate Marketing Conference & Exhibition in Munich, Germany from May 18 to 19, 2010. asknet is a leading provider of outsourcing solutions for the global electronic software distribution (ESD) industry and was recently ranked as one of Germany’s fastest-growing technology companies in Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 50” report.
The a4u expo is an annual event that brings together experts in the field of affiliate marketing. Banners and text links are not the only criteria for a successful affiliate network; maintaining direct contacts with the affiliates is a particularly important element of this kind of network. asknet will take advantage of the opportunity provided by the a4u expo to strengthen and expand contacts with affiliates. Today asknet maintains more than 35 international affiliate programs for its customers and has enjoyed an annual increase in sales. Affiliate marketing represents a cornerstone of the asknet online marketing strategy, as illustrated in a recent whitepaper on best practices in this field.
“Maintaining regular contact to our international affiliates is very important to us, and part of this is the face-to-face meetings that are made possible by industry events such as the a4u expo,” says Katja Speck, Vice President Global Marketing. “This is one reason why our global marketing team has been able to continuously expand our expertise in affiliate marketing over the past five years and successively increase the affiliate accounts for our customers. The effectiveness of our eMarketing measures has been proven – and this is precisely what our customers value.”

About asknet
asknet offers its clients customized outsourcing solutions for global software sales via the Internet. Founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, formerly the University of Karlsruhe), the company has become the number two independent global provider for electronic software distribution. In addition to its fully integrated shop solutions for software publishers, the company develops and maintains portals for software distribution such as softwarehouse.de, one of Europe's largest platform for downloads of standard software. In 2009, asknet posted sales of approximately 68.9 million euros. In 2009 the Karlsruhe company was named in the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu “Technology Fast 50” ranking of the fastest-growing technology firms in Germany. asknet’s clients include numerous providers of specialty software such as CollabNet, DivX, F-Secure, Nero, Panda Security, Steganos, and NetObjects. The company also supplies software products to around eighty percent of German universities.

Press Contacts
asknet AG
Kirsten Neininger
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6399
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com

asknet announces new president asknet, Inc.

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:00:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, April 26, 2010 – asknet AG, one of the leading providers of outsourcing solutions for global software distribution via the Internet (Electronic Software Distribution – ESD) announces its new president of the US Subsidiary, asknet Inc, Mark Begin. Mark has been partnering with asknets customers as VP of Global Account Management for the past few years, and is a member of the asknet management board. In his role, as VP Global Account Management, Mark launched the VIP process increasing the level of service to asknet customers - sharing asknets extensive online sales expertise and best practices to efficiently help customers grow their online sales. In addition to managing asknet Inc., Mark Begin will be responsible for North American new sales activities and account management of existing accounts in the NA region. “Over the last years we developed asknet successfully from a global online shop provider to a full-service outsourcing partner for vendors of digital content, and I am very excited to extend my role and convince the North American market that asknet’s partner approach is more than a marketing slogan”, says Mark Begin. asknet’s CEO Michael Scheib adds: “We want to thank Aston Fallen, the former President of the asknet Inc. for his dedicated International Sales Focus and are extremely pleased with Mark taking over seamlessly in the NA market, as it is a key to us to strengthen our NA presence.”

About asknet
asknet offers its clients customized outsourcing solutions for global software sales via the Internet. Founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, formerly the University of Karlsruhe), the company has become the number two independent global provider for electronic software distribution. In addition to its fully integrated shop solutions for software publishers, the company develops and maintains portals for software distribution such as softwarehouse.de, one of Europe's largest platform for downloads of standard software. In 2009, asknet posted sales of approximately 68.9 million euros. In 2009 the Karlsruhe company was named in the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu “Technology Fast 50” ranking of the fastest-growing technology firms in Germany. asknet’s clients include numerous providers of specialty software such as CollabNet, DivX, F-Secure, Nero, Panda Security, Steganos, and NetObjects. The company also supplies software products to around eighty percent of German universities. Further information is available from www.asknet.com.

Press Contacts
asknet AG
Kirsten Neininger
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com

www.asknet.com

Meet asknet at Infosecurity in London

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:32:00 +0200

Karlsruhe, April 20, 2010 – asknet AG, recently ranked as one of Germany’s fastest-growing technology companies in Deloitte’s “Technology Fast 50” report, announced its attendance at Infosecurity in London, April 27-29, 2010. The theme of this year's Infosecurity is “Are you being smart enough?” Working smart has never been this important, and stepping up security so crucial, when it comes to safeguarding and growing your business. asknet has successfully migrated and operated complex eCommerce platforms and lowered vendors’ IT costs by setting up tailored gateways to a variety of vendors’ system interfaces to automate real-time data transfer. In addition, asknet has been able to significantly increase the purchase conversion rates in its vendors’ eShops by implementing automated renewal and trial- to- purchase conversion programs, and advanced subscription management systems. “We’d like to invite all Infosecurity attendees to a demo of our flexible, state of the art technology which allows us to exactly match software vendors’ front-end and back-end needs and processes,” says Katja Speck, asknet’s VP of Global Marketing. “Further, we’d also like to introduce our regional eMarketing services designed to help software vendors enter new markets and grow their online revenue.” About asknet asknet offers its clients customized outsourcing solutions for global software sales via the Internet. Founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, formerly the University of Karlsruhe), the company has become the number two independent global provider for electronic software distribution. In addition to its fully integrated shop solutions for software publishers, the company develops and maintains portals for software distribution such as softwarehouse.de, one of Europe's largest platform for downloads of standard software. In 2009, asknet posted sales of approximately 68.9 million euros. In 2009 the Karlsruhe company was named in the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu “Technology Fast 50“ranking of the fastest-growing technology firms in Germany. Among its clients are well-known providers of specialty software such as CollabNet, DivX, F-Secure, Nero, Panda Security, Steganos, and NetObjects. asknet supplies software products to around eighty percent of German universities. Press Contacts:
asknet AG
Kirsten Neininger
phone: +49 (0)721.96458-6399
eMail: kirsten.neininger@asknet.com

asknet, Inc.
Bernard Haug
Phone: +1 (415) 352-2622
eMail: bernard.haug@asknet.com