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Marco Boerries: The Last Man Standing against Microsoft? His Star software will be the centerpiece of Sun's plan to create a Net-based computing universe that's an alternative to Windows Marco Boerries' start in business sounds like that of so many other precocious high-tech virtuosos -- such as Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Bill Gates. As a 16-year-old foreign exchange student living in Silicon Valley in the mid-1980s, the German-born Boerries fell so in love with the local technology scene that he refused to move back to Germany with his parents. In the end, he only returned when his mother agreed to let him drop out of school to work full-time on building a company. And rather than aim low, Boerries founded his company, Star Division, to go after the huge market for office programs, such as spreadsheets and word processors -- a market that was inhabited by giants, including Bill Gates's Microsoft Corp. For a while, that choice seemed quixotic. After all, Microsoft's had a 95% share in the $6 billion office productivity software market. Boerries wasn't shaking up techdom, but he remained confident that the world would one day want an alternative to Microsoft and that he could be the last man standing alongside Gates in that market. "The goal was to hang around long enough, until there was nobody left but Microsoft -- because some customers will always want an alternative," he says.
To be sure, Boerries was hardly a failure as an independent entrepreneur. He outlasted former rivals such as Lotus, Borland, and WordPerfect to become arguably Microsoft's top rival in some core European markets, including Germany. "I remember him predicting the demise of Lotus and Borland way back in the early 1990s because they were trying to compete with Microsoft by doing what Microsoft does," says Cisco Systems Vice-President Andreas Bechtolscheim, a co-founder of Sun who took a 20% stake in Star Division in 1992. But by focusing on creating software that runs on a non-Windows platform, the company racked up healthy market share in Germany and claims to have 4 million users all told. Half of them have signed on in the past two years. One reason: Star's suite of programs has become a favorite among the geeky set that favors the Linux operating system. And Star's fortunes seemed to be on the rise, thanks to the Internet. While Microsoft continued to focus software developers on Windows, Boerries started two years ago to create a version of Star's software that could be delivered via the Net. That drew the attention of some computer industry giants that wanted to loosen Microsoft's grip. IBM briefly considered buying the company, before deciding to acquire Lotus instead in 1995. A few years later, a consortium of Microsoft rivals including America Online, Netscape Communications, Oracle, Sun, and IBM came close to buying Star Division as a group and sharing ownership, say insiders.
Such talk was bound to strike a chord at Sun, which quickly emerged as the most likely partner. That's because Sun had been been pushing a similar vision. In recent years, Sun has been pulling together the technology for such a Net-based scheme -- including its Java software, the iPlanet e-commerce suite, and Web development tools acquired in its purchase of Forte Software in August. The missing piece was the everyday software that customers would need to make the jump to Web-based computing from Microsoft's PC-centric approach. And Boerries was no stranger to Sun. Thanks to investor Bechtolscheim's influence, Boerries got to know Sun executives, including Chief Scientist Bill Joy and CEO Scott McNealy. Says McNealy: "He's one of the most passionate, exciting guys I've run into in a long time." NO EASY CATCH. Still, Boerries wasn't an easy catch. As of last summer, he was still intent on going it alone. Rather than be acquired, he wanted Sun to resell Star's software. "He's an entrepreneur, and his company was doing well," says Sun Senior Vice-President Gene Banman, who repeatedly explained to Boerries that McNealy insists on owning -- not reselling -- technologies he deems critical to Sun's future. Instead, "I told him that our futures are intertwined, and we need to co-sell our products." Ultimately, Boerries came around, but it took a year to get from a basic understanding to inking the deal. Now, Boerries seems to have positioned himself well -- both with a financial package to satisfy his love of expensive food and Bordeaux wines and with a high-profile perch from which to pursue his dreams. "They incented me big-time to stay on and enhanced my responsibilities. This is very strategic for Sun -- and for me."
So will Sun's scheme to make StarOffice a Microsoft-killer work? Certainly, not anytime soon. But the next few years could be interesting -- especially for Boerries. For starters, the Net has spawned a new generation of companies, and they might want to add Star's spreadsheet, word processor, and other programs to their Web portals. And rather than buy the pricey PCs needed to run Microsoft's soon-to-be-released Windows 2000, some leading-edge corporations may make the jump to true Web-based computing. Even if Microsoft follows through on talk that it will create a Web-based version of its hugely popular Microsoft Office suite, that may not suffice. For starters, Office is a sprawling, 400-megabyte-plus program that won't likely move across standard modem lines very quickly, while Star takes up just 65 megabytes. Also, Star works on computers based not just on Windows but also on Unix software, including Linux and Sun's Solaris. And since Microsoft gets 40% of its revenues from Office, it's not likely to mimic Sun's giveaway tactic. "Even if they can re-architect it to run on the Web, I don't know how they match 'free,'" says McNealy. What's more, even if Boerries never succeeds in becoming the Bill Gates of the Internet Age, his future as a force in high tech seems almost assured. With Sun in his corner, it appears that Star has made good on the goal of being the last man standing against Microsoft -- and it's getting stronger, rather than just holding on. That's a testament to Boerries, say associates. "Marco has an incredible amount of enthusiasm for his agenda," says Bechtolscheim. "He has this inner belief that's remarkable. Not many people have the strength to keep after a goal that looks next to impossible. But now it's a new ball game." And a new chance to make good on the bold plans he laid out as a 16-year-old entrepreneur. Peter Burrows covers information technology from Silicon Valley. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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Star's Marco Boerries WEB POINTERS Click here to visit sites mentioned in the story: Sun Microsystems Sun's StarOffice Microsoft IBM Lotus | |||||||||||||||
