The Categories

By CRN Staff
, CRN
April 14, 2000 4:13 PM ET

The short list of E-Star Web integrators was easy to identify. The rise of Scient, Lante, Sapient, Razorfish and MarchFirst makes them among the most closely watched companies in the New Economy. They jumped in early and caught the front end of the E-business tsunami.

WINNERS

NOMINEES

Singling out one E-Star to spotlight was much tougher. The USWeb/CKS and Whittman-Hart merger, however, clinched the decision,not so much because the resulting company, MarchFirst, is now the largest Web integrator, but because it exemplifies the next wave of e-integration. The ability to do it all,consulting, site design and back-end integration,will be critical in the near e-future.

WINNERS

NOMINEES

The throng of ASPs and would-be ASPs grows daily. Never mind that few agree on a definition, skeptics still abound, and whole new terms will be invented for this segment before long. By any definition, our ASP E-Star, USinternetworking, is a leader. The company has 109 clients,more than any of its competitors. Unique among its rivals, USi is building its own data centers. And it is focused on the market.

The jury is still out, of course. E-Star nominees FutureLink, Corio, Interliant and Breakaway all represent a unique twist on the market. Carriers, hosting companies and vendors are also getting into the act, blurring the definitions further. Still, USi is the one to catch.

Buckle your seat belts. The fervid pace at which hosting companies are building data centers is set to reshape the industry. In an explosion of activity, these companies are emerging in all shapes and sizes, and our E-star nominees represent a sampling of forms that populate a market liable to break into pieces.

WINNERS

NOMINEES

So any talk of market leadership is premature. Exodus, Digital Island, IBM Global Services, Digex and Qwest are as varied a group of competitors as you'll find anywhere. We tip our hat, though, to Exodus. The company is a pioneer that hosts many of the most-visited sites on the Web. And Exodus is on everyone's short list of top hosting companies.

WINNERS

NOMINEES

The E-Star nominees in computer products e-tailing have one thing in common: They are focused on B2B, leaving consumer merchandising to higher-profile competitors. That has always been our bias, and investors are beginning to agree B2B is the next wave, with a larger potential for growth and profitability. Not coincidentally, Shopping4Sure.com, NECX, Firstsource.com, Onvia.com and Cyberswap.com all have distribution roots.

Shopping4Sure.com, our featured E-Star, gets the nod for paying attention to service and the fundamentals of good business practices. The privately held company may not have funny money to burn, but it has what it takes to go the distance.

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