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E-Stamp: Online Postage Stamp Technology Picks Up Steam

Dek: E-Stamp%squots online postage technology has great potential for Microsoft and AT&T products.

By Matthew Nelson, PCWorld   

E-Stamp Corporation has created an online system that will enable you to purchase and print U.S. Postal Service-viable stamps onto envelopes. This week, both Microsoft and AT&T Venture are announcing they have taken an equity stake in E-Stamp and will receive a 10 percent stake in the company and a seat on its board of directors.

There is great potential for E-Stamp technology in the product lines of both Microsoft and AT&T, according to analysts.

%dquotMicrosoft could certainly be incorporating the generating technology into Office. I could see clicking a button in Word and then printing out an envelope with a stamp on it,%dquot said Vernon Keenan, senior analyst for Zona Research in Redwood City, California.

%dquotThat%squots not a scenario that we%squotve ignored,%dquot said Greg Stanger, director of business development and investments for Microsoft. %dquotHaving the Office team pick it up and incorporate it into whatever they%squotre doing is not out of the question.%dquot

E-Stamp is preparing to beta-test the system in Washington and San Francisco by the end of the year. Once postage is purchased from the U.S. Postal Service over the Internet, the value will be held in an electronic %dquotvault%dquot and linked to a PC and printer, according to the company. The postal service will monitor the amounts as they currently do with postage machines. E-Stamp estimates that the complete system will cost less than $300 a year.

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