CyberCom folding up its Web business

Advertiser Staff

Peter Kay, the president of CyberCom Inc. and a radio and television personality, will lay off his remaining 19 employees at the end of August as the company gets out of the Web design business.

CyberCom had focused on Web and software development and generated $2.4 million in business last year with 25 employees working out of the Gold Bond Building.

But amid a background of declining Web site advertising and a sluggish local economy, the demand for Web design fell. CyberCom's Web hosting business will be transferred to Century Computers.

"We could either continue to hope that it would continue to change and ride it out with potentially dangerous consequences," Kay said, "or take the courage and wisdom to say this is no longer a market we should be in and get out in the best, most professional and honorable way."

All of the 19 employees have either gotten new jobs or are in the processing of finalizing them, Kay said. Many now work for CyberCom clients, which include Bank of Hawaii, Outrigger Hotels, the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, and Newsweek International, Kay said.

CyberCom will continue in some as-yet-undetermined direction, said Kay. Kay plans to continue his radio spot, "Your Computer Minute with Peter Kay," and his radio show, "Your Computer Hour."

Kay, 39, was teaching UNIX classes at Honolulu Community College in 1993 when he saw a demonstration of the World Wide Web. He then designed a Web site for Outrigger Hotels and Resorts and started CyberCom in 1994.