White Pine launches ASP

White Pine Software will announce this week at NetWorld+Interop 2000 that it is launching an application service provider (ASP) business and changing its name to CUseeMe Networks, effective immediately.

The new name is a logical choice because it matches the name of the company's chief product, CUseeMe, a software-based video conferencing product based on the H.323 standard for delivering two-way video over IP. "To get to the next level, we decided to change our name and build the brand in the mass market," says Peg Landry, director of marketing at the Nashua, N.H., company.

Later this month, the company will pull the covers off a service designed to provide portals, Internet communities and businesses with video-based chat rooms. CUseeMe already offers its own public chat room site (www.cuseemeworld.com) and will now make the same technology available to customers on a hosted basis.

Landry says the combination of the name change and the ASP offerings is designed to take the company's focus off video as the center of the universe. Instead, CUseeMe is focusing on augmenting technologies such as instant messaging with video, giving users a face-to-face experience.

As part of the name change, the company's Web site will be located at www.cuseeme.com and its stock market ticker symbol will be CUSM.

Press release
from Cuseeme Networks