Penton Closes Exchange Portion of Healthwell.com 40826

Penton Closes Exchange Portion of Healthwell.com

BOULDER, Colo.--New Hope Natural Media, based here, laid off 30employees Feb. 8 as it discontinued the development of the "exchange"portion of its Healthwell Exchange Web site. Penton Media, owner of New Hope,noted in its 4Q and FY00 report that it was making changes to several Internetoperations and was eliminating 50 staff positions between the Boulder, Salt LakeCity and Cleveland locations.

According to Mary Abood, vice president of corporate communications forPenton, the company remains committed to the natural products sector, but foundthe investment needs for the exchange part of the site prohibitively high. Sheadded that a few of the staff from the exchange project have moved back over tothe Healthwell site, which will remain an active information-based area. KimPaulsen, president of the Healthwell sector, will remain with the company, Aboodsaid.

Healthwell.com announced plans for its B2B Exchange site in 1999, and plannedto go live by June 2000. At the time, New Hope noted that the site would featurea closed loop system to connect consumers with retailers, distributors,manufacturers and suppliers. However, the exchange component never materialized.

Abood noted that Penton remains "100-percent committed to the naturalproducts sector" and is planning to make an announcement in the "verynear future" about a new component of its natural products division dealingwith research information services.

For more information about Penton Media, visit www.penton.com;for news on Healthwell, visit www.exchange.healthwell.com.