StarCite continues to build on its platform of e-products and services for the meetings industry, with the purchase of Cardinal Communication's RegWeb, an online attendee registration system. While StarCite end users will not be immediately impacted — the RegWeb product has been available through StarCite since late 2000 — the acquisition brings StarCite 11 new employees, including Cardinal's co-founder Rod Marymor, who will become senior vice president.
Cardinal's Berkeley, Calif., office is now the new West Coast office for Star-Cite. Key RegWeb creator Katherine Dunmire has been named vice president of West Coast operations and customer service, and RegWeb sales executive Dan Marks becomes vice president of technical product sales. For RegWeb clients, “initially there'll be no change because Katie [Dunmire] and I are still running the company,” says Marymor. “Our clients are going to have minimally the same service.”
In the long run, he says, StarCite will take “stronger and bolder steps” to integrate online registration and housing with its other attendee management and procurement e-tools, including site selection and RFPs, air booking in accordance with individual corporate policy, budgeting, reporting, and custom e-mail messaging to registrants. Company services also include brokering of canceled meeting space and online meeting space “auctions.”
For Cardinal, this is the second major sale in 2002. In March, the company sold the Meetings Industry Mall (www.mim.com) and its popular meetings industry MIMlist listserv to New York City-based trade show company VNU Business Media.