Intershop Communications AG

This article is about the e-commerce software company. For the former East German retail stores, see Intershop.

Intershop Communications AG

Company type	Public
ISIN	DE000A0EPUH1
Industry	E-Commerce, Enterprise Software
Founded	1992 (as "NetConsult")
Founder	Stephan Schambach, Karsten Schneider, Wilfried Beeck
Headquarters	Jena , Germany
Number of locations	10 (Germany: Jena, Ilmenau, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, USA: Chicago, San Francisco, Australia: Melbourne, Bulgaria: Sofia, France: Paris, Sweden: Stockholm)
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Board of Management: Markus Dränert (CEO), Petra Stappenbeck (CFO), Supervisory Board: Frank Fischer (Chairman of the Supervisory Board), Günter Hagspiel (Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board), Hans-Jürgen Rieder (Member of the Supervisory Board), Matthias Breuckmann (Member of the Supervisory Board).
Services	Implementation and integration, cloud operations/hosting, managed services, consulting and professional services, training and enablement, technical support and maintenance
Website	https://www.intershop.com/en/

Intershop Communications AG is a public e-commerce company headquartered in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. Intershop operates in Europe, the United States of America, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Company history

Intershop was founded in 1992 as NetConsult by Stephan Schambach, Karsten Schneider, and Wilfried Beeck. In 1995, the company created the first German online store. ^[1] That same year, they created "The first standard software for e-commerce applications." ^[2] marketed in the U.S. one year later ^[3] (see also Online shopping) and became one of the leading software developers for this early market. ^[4]

Intershop is one of the best examples of the "New Economy bubble" in Germany. The company value rose to $11 billion (US$) in 2000 and quickly fell to penny stock levels. ^[2] Low earning warnings by Intershop caused widespread losses for other tech companies; in one instance, SAP's stock fell by 8%. In 2001, an Intershop earnings warning spread through the sector, causing the Stock exchange segment Neuer Markt (NEMAX 50) to slump nearly 10%. ^[5] The company barely survived the crash but could keep operating and continue the development of products. About 30 spin-offs were founded, including Pixaco (later acquired by Hewlett-Packard), ePages, and Demandware (later acquired by Salesforce.com). ^[2]

References

1. "Overview from German History Docs". December 17, 2003. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
2. Buenstorf, Guido; Fornahl, Dirk (2006). "B2C - bubble to cluster: the dot.com boom, spin-off entrepreneurship, and regional industry evolution" (PDF). Papers on Economics and Evolution. MPI für Ökonomik. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
3. "Historical NetConsult Press Release". NetConsult. May 29, 1996. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
4. "Early customer's press release". Dec 11, 1996. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved April 14, 2012.
5. "Guardian article on consequences of Intershop profit warning". The Guardian. January 3, 2001. Retrieved April 14, 2012.