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A company story Interactive Objects
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Writing sample
David W. Paul |
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Beginnings Our company’s founders were aware early on that the sudden advance of Internet technology heralded a revolution in the way information would be transmitted and used. They foresaw the explosive growth of demand for information services as individuals, libraries, corporations, government institutions, and other entities discovered how to exchange unprecedented amounts of data electronically on a global basis. The company known today as Interactive Objects has a prehistory. In 1995, Ryan Smith, Jay Paulson, and John Guarino formed a company whose purpose was to create a World Wide Web presence for small businesses. This new company, called Neoteric Media, emerged at the time when the Web was experiencing its initial period of rapid growth. It soon became apparent that the market for Web publishers, especially in the Seattle area, was saturated with competitors offering similar products. Neoteric Media needed to look in a new direction if it was to expand its profit margins and play a distinctive role in the industry. The solution began to emerge in September 1996, when the company purchased a product then called Web Extender. The product’s developer, Steve Jackson, had his own company named Interactive Objects LLC, and in the course of the transaction, the two companies became one, retaining the name of Jackson’s company. Jackson subsequently became Chief Technology Officer of the newly incorporated Interactive Objects. The core product, Web Extender, was renamed Visual Gateway Interface, or VGI. With the purchase of this new product and the forging of a development team, Interactive Objects took shape as a spirited and innovative software company specializing in developer tools and Internet/intranet consulting. The Interactive Objects Era The initial tasks were clear: to proceed with the further development of VGI, and to secure the seed capital needed for expanding the corporate team and carrying the company into this exciting new phase of operations. Through a merger with Asia Pacific Chemical Engineering in September 1997, Interactive Objects obtained a listing on the NASDAQ exchange. Rapid growth followed, as we brought on board a group of highly talented developers, managers, testers, marketers, and documentation specialists. With our staffing in place, we look forward to launching our first release of VGI in the first quarter of 1998. Our executive team is especially strong. Their many years of combined experience with industry leaders such as Microsoft and IBM give them the wisdom to lead the company into the new millennium. An important part of the company’s business is our consulting services. Interactive Objects serves as a solution provider to a number of corporations who require state-of-the-art Internet or intranet development. In serving the needs of our clients, we gain ongoing insights into the needs of the information services market — insights that inform the development of our software products. Consulting thus serves as an R&D bed for identifying corporate informational problems, and the tools we build to solve those problems often spin off into the tools we develop for the broader market. Looking Ahead Our technologies represent a new approach to application development for World Wide Web servers. VGI provides a means of building interactive programs from modular components. The technique, known as object-oriented programming, is not new in itself; its previous network-related applications, however, were confined to local area networks (LAN) and wide-area networks (WAN) — that is, networks connecting the employees of individual companies. Applying object-oriented programming on a broader base had to wait until Internet technology advanced to its present stage. The spectacular progress in Internet technology during the nineties makes it possible now to share information over a worldwide network. As the delivery technology has evolved, a widespread demand has emerged for access to the vast amounts of information available online. A related phenomenon has occurred within many organizations where Internet technologies have been adapted to form the basis of intranets for the purpose of information exchange among staff members. Connecting individuals via their computers to an ever-increasing supply of online data, both within organizations and around the world, requires a complex set of software programs. This is where modular application-building comes in. Existing applications have to be either modified or rebuilt if individuals are to make use of the emerging information infrastructure to its full potential. It is not only data that will need to be shared, but program resources as well. The large, monolithic applications used on standalone PCs must be replaced by small, highly efficient programs running over the Internet or over an intranet. Such applications will have specific tasks to execute and must be capable of high-speed performance. They also need to be built quickly. VGI allows users to connect to all types of data sources and display them on a Web page. VGI also makes possible the input of data into an accessible storage unit — a file or database, for example. Because it is based on open standards, VGI has a “generic” quality that makes it useful to anyone who writes applications on the NT platform, whether using Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual C++, Borland C++, Delphi, or any other standard visual language. Programmers who take advantage of VGI are no longer required to master the use of multiple tool sets needed for scripting versions specific to different Web servers. Programmers will be challenged to work quickly as they create the many applications needed for information exchange. With Internet product cycles running currently at about nine months, programmers are under the gun to produce complex, effective applications on deadline. As in the building construction industry, where prefabricated modular sections dramatically cut the construction time of houses and factories, modular software components can be used to expedite the building of applications that will deliver information to meet the burgeoning demand of the online market. An Advantageous Position Interactive Objects occupies an exceptional strategic position in the market for object-oriented, modular Internet applications, for three reasons:
A Focused Vision Ever since its inception, Interactive Objects has been guided by an intense consciousness of the unfolding Internet technology and the nature of the market. Our management sees the company’s mission clearly and is determined to stay focused on our primary objectives: to deliver the most innovative and cost-effective components for the Internet/intranet development market, and to provide superior consulting services for clients who depend on us. At Interactive Objects, we see ourselves as potential partners with all major players in the Internet technology sector. Because our products are designed according to open standards, they can be used by Microsoft, Netscape, and other providers of Internet software. That there is a growing demand for developer tools is clear. Informed estimates of the market for development components run to $3 billion by the year 2001 — an increase of 65% per year from present levels. Onward Around the world, increasing numbers of people are demanding the ability to benefit from the information revolution. Their demand is fueling a rapidly expanding market for information services. These demands, in turn, are driving programmers to find faster ways of developing the applications needed to deliver the information. It is our mission to provide the tools programmers use for developing such applications. This mission, together with our expertise, places Interactive Objects in the vanguard of the information revolution as it enters its most dynamic phase.
Sample text © Interactive Objects Inc., 1997. Used by permission.
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