1/31/01 - According to two sources within PrintBid.com and a source familiar with the situation, Imagex.com will shut down the PrintBid.com site by February 9th. (PrintBid.com is a subsidiary of Imagex.com.) PrintBid just announced a subscription based service last quarter that was to generate revenue for the firm. Previously, PrintBid was a procurement service that was free to printers and print buyers. According to one source within the company, the site was able to attract just over 100 printers to pay the subscription fee. The site boasted over 10,000 registered print buyers and 4,000 detailed profiles on printers. According to one source, Imagex.com examined options before making this decision, but there were no viable takers. The web technology and database's future has not been determined. According to sources within the company, Imagex.com has provided key employees with a nice severence package, but told they were to leave today by 3:00 pm pacific standard time. Attempts to reach Imagex.com were unsuccessful. Below is the release and comments posted at the Imagex.com web site on 2/1/01. ImageX.com, Inc., announced that it will restructure the operations and technology developed under the PrintBid.com name. Operations in the Portland, Oregon office will be closed and its patents-pending technology will be moved to ImageX.com's corporate headquarters in Kirkland, where it will be integrated into ImageX.com's service offering. ImageX.com has seven patents pending on the PrintBid.com technology. "With PrintBid.com, we acquired innovative, proprietary technology that can offer valued services and options for our core corporate customers," stated Rich Begert, president and CEO, ImageX.com. "Our focus is now on integrating the PrintBid.com technology internally with our Corporate Online Printing Center solution as it applies to our Fortune 1000 customer base. We are confident that this realignment in our use of the PrintBid.com technology will help us achieve our financial goals in 2001."