Pacific Internet announces Pacfusion.com
Pacfusion.com is held together by 12 or more e-services catering to the needs of the public. These include the provison of online gaming news in eLeisure, IRC solutions in eChat and online purchases in eShopping. Only a few services are ready now but more will come in the future.
Larry Ang, General Manager of Pacific Internet's e-business group, termed the portal as "a solution in a box", and stressed on the importance of content in this venture. "Content is king again!" said Ang during the press conference. He also highlighted the commitment Pacfusion.com has towards the other 2 of the 3Cs of the Internet, which are Commerce and Community.
The infrastructure laid by Pacific Internet in the region, according to CEO Nicholas Lee, will enable the ISP to become the "AOL-plus" of the region.
In order to achieve this vision, Pacific Internet plans to partner major e-business players from the US and Europe to run Pacfusion.com's e-businesses, allowing the joint-venture partners to hold up to 51% of the shares. They will also partner Asian content providers such as ZDNetAsia to bring online information to the masses.
About US$54 million in cash and US$50 million in assets are channeled to Pacfusion.com, which is awaiting a further injection of approximately US$100 million from technological venture funds. They also made known the establishment of a venture capitalist fund to be used in bringing the services of promising Internet-related companies to Asia, using Pacfusion.com as the staging platform.