PHOENIX, Oct 13, 2004 (PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX) -- Newtek Business Services, Inc. (http://www.newtekbusinessservices.com/), a provider of business services and financial products to the small to medium-sized business market, today announced that it's subsidiary, CrystalTech Web Hosting, Inc., has released a hosting plan geared towards providing ASP.NET programmers of all levels with a low-cost, stable and reliable development environment. The new hosting plan, labeled the ASP.NET Developer Plan, offers enough website space, bandwidth and Microsoft SQL Server space to accommodate any one of a number of varied applications, from simple websites to more complex applications like shopping carts and content management systems.

When asked about the initial origin of the new Plan, Tim Uzzanti, CrystalTech's CEO, said, "This offer is related to our participation in the ASP.NET Hosting Advantage program. We felt that the ASP.NET Developer Plan was perfectly positioned for this market and we're thrilled to be working with Microsoft on helping developers move to ASP.NET. Both experienced and novice developers are looking for a reasonably priced hosting plan that they can take advantage of to deploy their ASP.NET applications over the web. We decided to make this plan available to all potential CrystalTech customers, as well as to our already sizeable community of ASP.NET developers." Mr. Uzzanti went on to say that CrystalTech has production hosting plans available as well to accommodate developers who are ready to move their projects from the development stage to actual deployment. These plans upgrade the allocations given in as part of the new ASP.NET Developer Plan, including more disk space and bandwidth, web site statistics, substantial email accounts and more.

Barry Sloane, Chairman and CEO of Newtek Business Services, Inc., added "We are thrilled that Microsoft has recognized CrystalTech to be a high quality service provider. We believe that this relationship will lead us to growth in this important division and allow us to continue to penetrate the small to medium-sized customer base with high quality products and services."

About CrystalTech

Founded in 1992, CrystalTech Web Hosting, Inc. is one of the largest Windows-based web hosting companies in the world, hosting customers in over 80 countries, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations. CrystalTech is responsible for hundreds of millions of visits each day on the Internet and uses a state-of-the-art data center that includes redundancy throughout core systems like power, air conditioning, network connectivity, network transportation, as well as a secured environment for their network operations center. CrystalTech is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Newtek Business Services, Inc. , a premier provider of business services and financial products to small and medium-sized businesses. For more information about CrystalTech, please contact 877-323-4678 or visit http://www.crystaltech.com/.

About Newtek Business Services, Inc.

Newtek Business Services, Inc. is a premier provider of business services and financial products to the small to medium-sized business market. Newtek's core brands include:

* Newtek Small Business Finance: small business and U.S. government-
guaranteed lending services;

* Newtek Merchant Solutions: electronic merchant payment processing
solutions;

* Newtek Insurance Agency: customized business insurance (to be
operational in 2004);

* Newtek IT Services: complete information technology solutions;

* CrystalTech Web Hosting: comprehensive web site services for small and
medium sized businesses;

* Newtek Financial Information Systems: outsourced digital bookkeeping;
and

* Newtek Tax Services: tax filing, preparation and advisory services.


The statements in this release may contain forward-looking statements relating to such matters as anticipated future business strategies and financial performance, anticipated future number of customers, business prospects, legislative developments and similar matters. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward looking statements. In order to comply with the terms of the safe harbor, the Company notes that a variety of factors could cause the Company's or CrystalTech's actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results expressed in the Company's forward looking statements such as intensified competition and/or operating problems and their impact on revenues and profit margins or additional factors as described in Newtek Business Services' 2003 annual report on Form 10-K and subsequently filed registration statements.

Contacts:
Newtek Business Services
Barry Sloane
Chairman of the Board & CEO
212-356-9500
bsloane@newtekbusinessservices.com

Dave Gentry
Aurelius Consulting Group, Inc.
407-644-4256
dave@aurcg.com


SOURCE Newtek Business Services, Inc.

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