MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (October 23, 1996) -- Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced that Scotia Capital Markets, the investment banking, trading and brokerage arm of Scotiabank, the fourth largest bank in Canada, has selected Netscape software as the basis for its corporate Intranet. Scotia Capital Markets is utilizing the Intranet among its brokers and other employees to share industry information on market, financial and business trends. Scotia Capital Markets purchased a site license for Netscape Navigator client software and Netscape SuiteSpot server software in support of its Intranet development efforts.
The Scotia Capital Markets corporate Intranet began taking shape in March of 1996 and was rolled out to users as a production system in early August. Available to all 55 retail branches and the Toronto office of Scotia Capital Markets, the site received rave reviews in its first few weeks. Today, brokers on the trading floor, retail branch staff, corporate employees and executives are using the Intranet. The Intranet provides employees with access to the Internet and the company's own external Web site at www.scotiacapital.com. By making internal and external information seamless for the end user, the company avoids duplicating information that is already available on the Net.
"When we decided to build an online employee information resource we looked at everything available," said Gail Smith, vice president of front office development at Scotia Capital Markets. "The primary reason we selected Netscape was because the products are extremely effective and meet the needs of our internal customers. In addition, we find Netscape client and server software to be cost-effective. Best of all it operates cross-platform on our existing network and is completely TCP/IP oriented - every workstation has an address. Netscape products fit our environment."
"Scotia Capital Markets, like many companies, realizes how important the corporate Intranet is today and will become in the future as a business tool," said Mike Homer, senior vice president of marketing at Netscape. "Scotia Capital Markets saw that because Netscape technology is an easy transition for existing information technology staff, the company could ramp up quickly and experience the benefits."
Scotia Capital Markets developed its Intranet to address the fact that its business increasingly depends upon the timely delivery of information and its investment advice to customers. Scotia Capital Markets services clients through 55 offices across Canada and locations in New York; Boston; London; Singapore; Tokyo; and Cologne, Germany. As a result of this extensive reach, keeping up with the pace of business was increasingly becoming a challenge through traditional paper and electronic means.
Visitors to the Scotia Capital Markets Intranet home page find navigational buttons leading them to key areas of interest. In addition to an online help section and the worldwide employee telephone book, the site is broken down into six strategic topic areas, three internal and three external.
The internal sites include:
The external sites include:
To support the extensive corporate Intranet, Scotia Capital Markets uses Netscape SuiteSpot server software components including Netscape Enterprise Server software as the company's main Web server and Netscape Proxy Server software. In addition, 2,500 employees today use Netscape Navigator client software. To help employees find the information they need, Scotia Capital Market's site includes a built-in Excite search engine.
In the future, Scotia Capital Markets plans extensive application prototyping to experiment with the many ideas being generated every day. The company hopes to deliver many applications using Netscape software and Java that previously would have been delivered slowly through custom applications.
"One of the best things about our Intranet and Internet sites is that we have learned that development is quick and therefore very conducive to prototyping. We are not tied into GUI development, software distribution issues or even concerned with platform," said Ian Ballard, vice president of software development at Scotia Capital Markets. "Ultimately, this technology will allow us to leap right onto the desks of our institutional and retail customers. This has huge implications for market share because providing information is no longer just the domain of wire services and other news and information outlets."
The Scotia Capital Markets trademark represents the capital markets businesses of The Bank of Nova Scotia and ScotiaMcLeod Inc., two of Canada's most prominent financial organizations. Scotiabank, the fourth largest bank in Canada, is also the country's most international bank, serving customers in 1,460 branches and office in 47 countries worldwide, with an asset base of $158 billion CAD.
Netscape Communications Corporation is a leading provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of clients, servers, development tools and commercial applications to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "NSCP," Netscape Communications Corporation is based in Mountain View, California.
Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com, or by calling 415/937-2555 (corporate customers) or 415/937-3777 (individuals).
Netscape, Netscape Communications, the Netscape Communications Corporation logo, Netscape Navigator, Netscape SuiteSpot, Netscape Enterprise Server and Netscape Proxy Server are trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation. All other product names are trademarks of their respective companies.