M'sia: BizAid invests US$2.37m in Web portals
BizAid chief executive officer Victor Ooi said the company had invested this amount on the development, marketing and operations of two Web portals, Form-co.com and Infocommerce.com and an e-practice office system solutions or EPOS for short.
EPOS is made up of three software applications: Secretarial Automation System (SAS) for company secretaries, Tax Automation System (TAS) for tax consultants and Practice Relation Management (PRM) for the accounting management field. Ooi said EPOS would be available via an out-of-the-box solution and on an ASP (application service provider) model.
He was talking to reporters after a signing ceremony between BizAid and BizInfo Systems Sdn Bhd, Intel Malaysia and IBM Malaysia on Thursday.
Ooi said Form-co.com, which is expected to be online in the first quarter of next year, would be the first Internet portal for online company formation services.
"Form-co.com is basically a one-stop centre service for newly formed companies to register themselves via the Internet. The portal also provides e-trading of shelf companies, e-consulting outfits as well as providing e-business functions such as online auctioning. The site will also be a knowledge and business network portal for entrepreneurs and start up companies," he explained.
Form-co.com plans to earn revenue from membership fees and commissions by directing businesses to companies listed on the site. Ooi also said Form-co.com may join forces with the Registrar of Companies (ROC) to enable online registration of companies.
While this idea is reminiscent of the many fee-based models portals tried to use and ultimate failed in making money, Ooi is unperturbed and remained upbeat about his chances with Form-co.com.
"We are confident this will work and there would be a great demand for our services. We have a strong value proposition," he stressed adding that Form-co.com is targeted towards the company secretaries, tax and business consulting sector.
EPOS and the two Internet portals are developed by BizInfo Systems Sdn Bhd. Form-co.com is a Linux-based portal built on Intel-based architecture. The applications are developed using IBM's software solution of Websphere Application Server, VisualAge and hardware consisting of IBM eServer xSeries.