ARKONA and StoneEagle.com Partner to Provide Integrated Dealer Management and Finance & Insurance Solutions
SALT LAKE CITY--July 9, 2002--ARKONA Inc. (OTC: ARKN) and StoneEagle.com Inc. Tuesday announced a strategic alliance where both companies intend to fully integrate their products to provide a complete financial management solution for franchise and independent automobile dealers.
This new solution will be available to thousands of automobile dealers needing accounting, F&I, payroll and service contract capabilities.
Both companies are uniquely prepared to provide fully integrated, real-time service contract calculations, credit insurance calculations, and paperless data exchange to dealerships and insurance administrators through ARKONA's Application Service Provider (ASP) delivery model. Both dealers and service contract providers will realize the benefits of this solution.
ARKONA is the first dealer management offering that will be fully integrated with StoneEagle.com. With ARKONA's new-generation ASP model, dealers now have a cost-effective, low maintenance, and full-featured solution via the Web and access to numerous value-add partner connections.
According to Bobby Allen, president of StoneEagle.com, "To our knowledge this project marks the first attempt at bridging the gap between insurance providers and dealerships. This collaboration will allow for real-time service contract quotes and paperless data exchange, which will enable service contract providers to effectively track and service their products.
"ARKONA is uniquely positioned to affect this type of exchange."
"ARKONA and StoneEagle.com provide us with great dealer solutions," said Ken Bayles, general manager, Elegant Autos of Dallas. "They have streamlined our F&I and accounting departments at a fraction of the cost that their competitors wanted to charge us."
In addition to integrating products, the two companies will engage in joint selling and marketing activities under a revenue sharing model that has been put in place.
"ARKONA's alliance with StoneEagle.com is a giant step forward into the independent automobile marketplace where we intend to be the market leader with our ASP offering," said Jeff Swain, VP of sales for ARKONA. "StoneEagle.com offers automobile dealers a powerful link between the ARKONA dealer management solution and secondary providers through StoneEagle.com's network.
"By integrating real-time quotes and receiving immediate confirmations, risk is better managed by the secondary provider, the dealer is assured of accurate quotations, and the buyer receives the service contract they expected," concluded Swain.
About StoneEagle.com
StoneEagle.com, a subsidiary of the StoneEagle Group, provides aftermarket financial services such as charge-back indemnity administration, F&I penetration reporting, insurance data extraction, and service contract validation, quoting and claim submission via the Web to automobile dealers, banks, credit unions and other financial institutions nationwide.
StoneEagle.com is an industry-specific software design and development company. Headquartered in Dallas, StoneEagle personnel have been involved in providing software applications to the insurance and related industries since 1967. For more information, visit www.stoneeagle.com.
About ARKONA Inc.
Founded in 1996, ARKONA is a public company and a leader in automotive management solutions. ARKONA's Dealer Management Suite also leads the market in technologically superior e-business solutions for automotive dealers that fully integrate back office systems with a retail Web presence. In this market ARKONA is one of the first premier Application Service Providers (ASP).
For more information, visit the ARKONA Web site at www.arkona.com.
This release may contain forward-looking statements as well as historical information.
Forward-looking statements, which are included in accordance with the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, may involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the company's actual results and performance in future periods to be materially different from any future results or performance suggested by the forward-looking statements in this release.
Such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements found herein to reflect any changes in company expectations or results or any change in events.